On December 20, 130,000 San Franciscans lost power during a citywide Pacific Gas and Electric — or PG&E — outage. The company says the root cause of the outage is still under investigation, but that a fire at one of their substations in the Mission contributed to it.
During Tuesday’s meeting, Sunset District Supervisor Alan Wong called for a formal hearing into the outages.
“This was not a minor inconvenience," Wong said. "Families lost heat in the middle of winter. Seniors were stranded in their homes. One of my constituents, a 95-year-old man who relies on a ventilator, had to be rushed to the hospital at two in the morning.”
Wong also sent a formal inquiry letter to the Public Utilities Commission about what it would take for the city to acquire the company.
“What would it cost? What financing is available? Does the city have the capacity to operate a grid? What's a realistic timeline?”
It’s not the first time the city has discussed acquiring PG&E. In 2019, then-Mayor London Breed and City Attorney Dennis Herrera offered $2.5 billion to buy the company’s grid. PG&E turned it down, but the pressure is mounting from local politicians.
State Senator Scott Wiener is renewing calls for the city to take over the privately owned grid. And District 1 Supervisor Connie Chan introduced two resolutions — co-sponsored by District 6 Supervisor Matt Dorsey — on Tuesday to “hold PG&E accountable.”
The first resolution reaffirms the city's efforts to acquire PG&E. The second resolution urges the state to withhold PG&E’s safety certificates until all of its infrastructure has gone through a safety inspection.
“PG&E's ongoing, preventable disasters, and failure to upgrade and improve its infrastructure prove the company cannot deliver electricity to our residents in a safe, reliable, and affordable manner,” Chan said during Tuesday's meeting.
Supervisor Dorsey had strong words for the company as well:
“ Whatever else we find out about what caused the December 20th outage, here's a spoiler alert: It's because PG&E is an investor owned utility accountable to shareholders before rate payers. And until that changes, we can expect more of the same. Just as we have for decades.”
There are publicly owned utilities all up and down the state, even in the Bay Area. Alameda, the Port of Oakland, and Palo Alto are just a few of the many places with publicly owned utilities in California.
Whether PG&E will be willing to sell their grid in San Francisco remains to be seen. They hired a third party to investigate the root causes of the outages, they say preliminary results are expected next month. A representative from PG&E asked the Board of Supervisors to hold off on drawing any conclusions until the results of that investigation are complete.
