On Saturday morning, routine work at two substations in San Francisco led to a significant power outage, affecting around 9,400 PG&E customers. At the same time, a system error mistakenly alerted about 120,000 customers of a power disruption.
The blackout started around 9:45 a.m., triggered during the maintenance activities. Initially, customers in the Richmond and Golden Gate Park areas were most impacted.
However, PG&E’s outage notification system inflated the situation, incorrectly claiming that 120,000 San Francisco residents were experiencing a power failure.
“Our 120,000 customers have never lost power,” stated PG&E spokesman Edgar Hopida, addressing the confusion.
The utility explained that because two circuits were involved, the notification system incorrectly aggregated into a larger protection device, leading to the exaggerated outage figures.
Operators were able to fix the error in about 30 minutes, revising the affected customer count to the true figure of approximately 9,400.
The fallout from the outage wasn’t limited to residential areas; Waymo, Alphabet Inc.’s robotaxi service, had to pause operations in San Francisco because of the traffic light failures caused by the outage.
PG&E acknowledged that the erroneous alert went out to around 120,000 customers before the mistake was rectified.
This incident drew more attention because PG&E functions as a government-chartered and state-regulated monopoly throughout Northern California and San Francisco.
Although it lacks direct competitors in its territory, its operations are monitored and rate hikes are approved by state regulators.
The Richmond area saw the highest concentration of outages, with between 500 and 4,999 customers experiencing power loss, based on the outage map.
A smaller outage near San Jose Avenue left between 50 and 499 customers without power, while other parts of the city reported various smaller disruptions affecting fewer than 50 customers each.
As of midday, about 2,500 customers were still without power while repair teams worked diligently on-site and customers were being transferred to different lines to restore service.
The expected restoration time was pushed back from 12:30 p.m. to 2:30 p.m., and the utility vowed to investigate the cause of the outage.
“The safety of our customers and our hometown is PG&E’s top priority,” the company emphasized.
