The roughly 1,000 goats are an environmentally friendly alternative to traditional vegetation management work, which often requires crews to scale steep hills and rocky slopes—terrain that goats can more nimbly navigate. Since SDG&E first piloted the goat vegetation management program in 2021, the herd has helped clear thousands of high-risk acres and avoid the need to utilize herbicides and heavy machinery—making it an ideal solution near homes and sensitive environmental habitats.

SDG&E has been working this summer to familiarize customers with its goat herd, featuring them as part of the company’s series of Annual Wildfire Safety Fairs. The safety fairs have been an opportunity to provide customers with emergency preparedness resources and information while also allowing them to feed and interact with the goats. The events are helping SDG&E drive home the critical role that goats play in their local wildfire mitigation. 

"Our goats may be a visible symbol of our wildfire prevention strategy, but they represent just one element of SDG&E's comprehensive, multi-layered approach for community safety and grid resilience," SDG&E Vice President for Wildfire and Climate Science Brian D'Agostino said in a statement. 

In addition to the goats, SDG&E has developed a comprehensive wildfire mitigation program that integrates cutting-edge technology, ecological solutions, and community collaboration to help reduce wildfire risk. The company maintains a wildfire and climate resilience center, which serves as a hub for research, development, and implementation of innovative wildfire prevention and mitigation solutions. 

SDG&E also operates a sophisticated weather network that applies machine learning to help predict weather patterns and better understand fire potential. And, the company has completed more than 315 miles of strategic undergrounding, installed 1,600 fire-resistant poles, and conducted more than 10,000 miles of advanced LiDAR inspections, enhancing reliability and safety for customers. 

SDG&E is far from the only EEI member company to embrace animals as a solution for vegetation management. Rochester Gas & Electric works with a team of rescue goats to control vegetation under its transmission lines. And, Louisville Gas and Electric Company and Kentucky Utilities Company (LG&E and KU) have tapped a flock of more than 200 sheep to help with similar efforts. Read more about LG&E and KU’s sheep in the Sept./Oct. 2023 issue of Electric Perspectives. 

Throughout the year, electric companies partner with local organizations to help conserve and maintain pollinator habitats. They also establish their own pollinator gardens.

In 2020, more than 45 companies in the energy and transportation sectors, including several EEI member companies, agreed—under the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s Candidate Conservation Agreement with Assurances—to increase and maintain the habitats of monarch butterflies and other at-risk pollinator species on public and private lands across the country.

Several EEI member companies also were part of EPRI’s Power-in-Pollinators Project Plan. The project, launched in 2017, is the largest collaboration in the world for electric companies to advance shared research, tools, and resources for pollinator management efforts across the millions of acres of land they collectively manage. It is an opportunity for electric companies and other stakeholders to work together on joint research and conservation efforts to maximize the support for pollinators and their habitats.

EEI proudly sponsored EPRI’s “Power for Pollinators” documentary in 2021. You can watch it on EPRI’s YouTube page.