Wind complicates power restoration
PG& E mobilizes amid red flag warning
Pacific Gas & Electric Co. restored power to nearly all homes and businesses that had their electricity cut in recent days as a safety precaution ahead of gusty winds and the heightened fire risk that came with them, the company said Friday.
Even so, the National Weather Service extended its red flag warning signaling high fire danger until 8 a. m. Saturday. The warning pertained to the North Bay mountains and East Bay hills.
PG& E had cut power to around 41,000 homes and businesses — many of them in the Bay Area — this week in an effort to prevent any equipment damaged by the winds from starting wildfires.
By Friday evening, PG& E said “essentially all” affected customers had seen their power restored. An online map on PG& E’s website showed a small group of customers near Angwin and other parts of Napa County and a small area in San Mateo County without power due to the safety shutoffs Friday evening. Reports by PG& E representatives and local officials suggested areas in Sonoma, Santa Clara and San Mateo were among the last to have power restored.
Areas in all Bay Area counties save for Marin and San Francisco saw shutoffs this week. The Oakland hills and Calistoga were among the areas most affected. The company must first inspect its power lines and other equipment for damage before turning electricity back on. The power utility reported 30 preliminary cases of damage or hazards that potentially could have led to a fire, and said wind gusts exceeded 61 mph in Contra Costa County and 73 mph in Sonoma County.
The recent shutoffs were far smaller in scope than
the October 2019 blackouts that affected millions throughout Northern California and the Bay Area. Weather is the biggest factor in determining the scale of shutoffs, but PG& E has also done work to strengthen its grids and upgrade its systems to limit shutoffs to those strictly necessary for safety. Work to “sectionalize” the grid, or isolate portions of PG& E’s network of power lines, allows the utility to keep more parts of the grid on when power is cut off elsewhere. Generators at substations can power small areas in what’s known as a “microgrid.” Calistoga, which has seen repeated shutoffs since 2018, benefited from such backup power this time.
PG& E’s outages can affect other infrastructure, including wireless and internet communications. A Comcast representative told The Chronicle that all of its customers would have internet restored by the end of day on Friday. The PG& E shutoffs triggered Comcast outages for several thousand Bay Area residents, because the internet provider has equipment in areas that lost electricity.
State regulators and legislators have pushed communications firms to provide more backup power to last through planned PG& E shutoffs.