PG&E, Building Industry Collaborate on Further Improving New Service Connections

SAN RAMON — Inside a bustling meeting room at the San Ramon Valley Conference Center, developers and builders from across the Bay Area gathered on Thursday (Aug. 22) to learn more about PG&E’s new-service connections process.

Nearly 50 people representing 24 companies in the development community attended the first California Building Industry Association-PG&E New Business Training Workshop. Attendees represented national homebuilders, general contractors, applicant designers, civil engineering firms and commercial developers.

The theme for the day-long seminar: “How to get your projects to go faster.”

“It’s the No. 1 thing we hear from our customers: How can we deliver more quickly,” said PG&E Service Planning & Design Director Kevin Douty. “As part of our ongoing collaboration with the California Building Industry Association (CBIA), we wanted to help our customers understand where and how we can make the connections process faster.”

Helping customers navigate that process is more vital than ever given the number of applications filtering through PG&E’s 24/7 customer portal.

The portal fields more than 250,000 applications a year, or about 1,200 on an average day, including applications for new business, upgrades, changes to service, solar and battery energy storage, among other requests.

In partnership with the CBIA, PG&E has substantially improved new-service connections over the past year. For example, what was a six-month project design backlog in early 2023 is now down to less than a month, and intake tweaks have cut the number of required documents from customers by more than half.

But leaders with the CBIA and PG&E felt any effort to refine processes needed an assist from customers.

That inspired Don Hofer, vice president of community development for Shea Homes and a past president of the CBIA, to suggest the workshop.

“The interface that builders and developers have with PG&E is unique to anything else we experience in our business,” Hofer said. “Having insight into the new-service process and how to make it work for individual projects will give everyone the ability to respond and be successful.”

Added Chris Ochoa, CBIA senior counsel for Codes, Regulatory and Legislative Affairs: “We’ve done a lot of work and come a long way, and our relationship has improved tremendously. But we wanted to get developers in here and figure out a way to make sure we’re talking the same language to become even more efficient as we move forward.”

A foundation for success

Throughout the day, attendees received an in-depth walk-through on the new-service process, beginning with application submission and continuing through design, permitting and construction and lastly, closeout.

Members of PG&E’s Service Planning and Design team shared the steps of each phase.

Douty and Chima Amajioyi, a program manager on PG&E’s Training & Skill Building Support team, outlined the Customer Journey Map, a detailed flow chart and list of responsibilities of customers, their applicant designers and PG&E.

“Laying a foundation of understanding of how the new-service connection process is organized is really fundamental to helping customers apply successfully,” Amajioyi said.

Presenters also shared application tips with attendees — for example, wait to apply until the project’s full scope is clear, and update PG&E job owners as soon as builder contacts change.

Along the way, the PG&E team fielded feedback from attendees, took notes on a whiteboard of ideas for additional improvements and posted the pages on the meeting room’s walls.

Douty also discussed progress the CBIA and PG&E have made working together since the two signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) in July 2023, including:

• A 30% drop in design backlog
• More than 11,000 connections in 2023, up from about 9,000 connections in 2022
• Reaching three of four commitments in the MOU, including advance construction scheduling, centralized support for escalations and interim power solutions

PG&E has filed for approval of the fourth commitment — a pilot for developer tie-ins — with the California Public Utilities Commission.

Attendees also received a roster of key Service Planning & Design contacts in each region for escalating issues.

“Our goal is for you to come back next year and say, ‘I feel the improvements you’ve made,’” Douty said.

‘It’s awesome’

Attendees said they found the workshop valuable.

Thor Hoskins, assistant vice president of development for San Mateo-based developer Sares Regis, participated in the workshop as both an audience member and a presenter.

Hoskins led a 40-minute  “builder to builder” segment during which he discussed how Sares Regis and PG&E worked together to deliver the mixed-use Cityline development in Sunnyvale on schedule. At the start of his presentation, Thor led the crowd in a joint “thank you” to PG&E staff “for doing the job they do and for the collaboration they are facilitating.”

Though he has roughly 15 years of building and development experience in the Bay Area, Hoskins said he learned new things at the meeting — particularly about how to best use the customer portal.

“Moving forward, I want to interface with the portal more directly, along with our consultants, so I can see any red flags over the horizon and deal with them proactively,” he said.

Kai Zhang, architect and vice president of construction for AL Homes in San Jose, called the workshop “an invaluable experience for our team.”

“The workshop was extremely beneficial in helping us better understand the processes, challenges and opportunities within PG&E’s framework, and we’re excited to apply these insights to our future projects,” Zhang said.

The workshop refreshed attendees on developers’ responsibility to ensure smooth project timelines as part of PG&E’s customer on-time delivery process, he said. The event also highlighted how PG&E is dedicating more resources to streamline energizations, and shared specific practices for developers to prevent scheduling issues.

“Ultimately, the workshop reinforced that constant communication and mutual understanding are essential for a successful project,” Zhang said. “Keeping all parties — contractors, superintendents, developers, inspectors and PG&E project owners — informed, engaged and up-to-date on all project changes is the key to ensuring on-time delivery. 

Hofer said he’s gathering feedback from attendees and mulling future CBIA-PG&E New Business Training Workshops.

“What we’re doing here today is great,” he said. “In 30 years in the Bay Area building industry, I don’t know that I’ve ever seen as many functional leaders within PG&E in a location like this to interface with our teams. It’s awesome, it really is. This is where the rubber meets the road and I think this is how we’re going to continue to make it better.”