PG&E Continues Restoration Efforts Following Substation Fire Impacting 130,000 Customers
Pacific Gas and Electric Co. (PG&E) continues restoration efforts after a major power outage caused by a fire inside a PG&E substation at 8th and Mission streets in San Francisco over the weekend.
The outage began at approximately 1:09 p.m. Saturday, Dec. 20, and peaked about two hours later, impacting roughly 130,000 customers. San Francisco fire officials confirmed the substation fire in a post on X around 3:15 p.m. PG&E reported no injuries to employees or members of the public as a result of the incident.
"The damage from the fire in our substation was significant and extensive and the repairs and safe restoration will be complex," PG&E said in an update on its website. PG&E has mobilized all available engineers and electricians and implemented a highly detailed work plan with an elevated focus on safety.
By Sunday afternoon, crews had restored service to approximately 114,000 customers, including about 4,000 restorations completed Sunday. As of noon Sunday, about 17,000 customers remained without power, primarily in the Presidio, Richmond District, Golden Gate Park and small areas of downtown San Francisco.
PG&E said it expects to restore all remaining customers affected by the substation outage by no later than 2 p.m. Monday. The majority of customers were restored within six to eight hours of the initial outage and that crews are continuing to pursue local restoration opportunities where conditions allow.
PG&E is communicating estimated restoration times directly to customers and providing updates through its online outage map. The utility acknowledged the disruption caused by the outage, particularly during the holiday season, and emphasized that crews will continue working until all customers are safely restored.
The cause of the substation fire has not been released, as there will most likely be an investigation and report. As our industry knows, substation fires are most often triggered by equipment failures, such as overheating, insulation breakdown or loose connections. These can lead to arcing or overloading. Oil-filled power transformers pose the largest fire risk in any substation, according to a 2019 report from David Petersile of Burns & McDonnell and Bill Mackay of Advanced Safety Systems.
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About the Author
Nikki Chandler
Group Editorial Director, Energy
Nikki is Group Editorial Director of the Endeavor Business Media Energy group that includes T&D World, EnergyTech and Microgrid Knowledge media brands. She has 29 years of experience as an award-winning business-to-business editor, with 24 years of it covering the electric utility industry. She started out as an editorial intern with T&D World while finishing her degree, then joined Mobile Radio Technology and RF Design magazines. She returned to T&D World as an online editor in 2002. She has contributed to several publications over the past 25 years, including Waste Age, Wireless Review, Power Electronics Technology, and Arkansas Times. She graduated Phi Beta Kappa with a B.S. in journalism from the University of Kansas.