Some 11,000 homes in the Richmond, Golden Gate Park and the Presidio lost power around 7:45 p.m. Sunday evening. Most customers had their power restored by 10:15 p.m.
The outage is the third in San Francisco over the past eight days. The first happened on Dec. 20, with a third of the city losing power. Pacific Gas & Electric took over 48 hours to restore power to all the homes.
Then, on Dec. 28, around 6,000 customers lost power in the Sunset for several hours in the middle of the day.
According to an email from District 1 Supervisor Connie Chan, who oversees the area affected by today’s outage, PG&E had been planning to turn off the power for some 6,000 homes between 11 p.m. and 12 a.m. this evening. This planned outage is so that PG&E can switch the neighborhood fully back to grid power, and turn off the generators it had been using to power the area.
PG&E will still do the planned outage tonight at 11 p.m, according to Chan. PG&E informed her that the unplanned outage was due to issues with transformers, which convert high voltage electricity into the low voltage electricity that is used in homes.
PG&E did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
“The citywide power outage illustrates how a privatized utility company like PG&E can use its monopoly power to increase out bills, make profit on the backs of working people and still fail in its obligation to deliver power safely and reliably for San Francisco,” Chan wrote on Instagram on Dec. 23, calling for the city to acquire PG&E’s infrastructure.
According to Chan’s email, PG&E was offering discounted hotel accommodation and to cover $200 in food costs per day, per family. Alternatively, customers who stayed in place could file claims for $1000. The company had previously announced it would offer $200 to households affected by the outage and $2,500 for businesses.
Anusha Subramanian contributed reporting.
