CPUC Puts Sanctions On PG&E Following Outages

Sacramento, CA — The California Public Utilities Commission has issued a series of sanctions against Pacific Gas and Electric following the widescale planned power outages last week.

The commission says the utility must have a goal of restoring power to customers within 12 hours following a weather event, minimize the scale of future outages and better communicate with the public and local officials. The commission referred to PG&E’s actions as “failures in execution.”

PG&E acknowledged issues, such as its website crashing due to high load. The planned power outages impacted around 700,000 residences totaling around 2 million Californians.

On a related note, PG&E says, statewide, inspections found 100 instances were strong winds last week resulted in trees or debris hitting power lines.