PG&E Power Outages: 32 Counties Could Be In The Dark Through Wednesday

The power outages in California continue as utility company PG&E (PCG) said it is monitoring another widespread wind event that could cause it to turn power off, starting on Tuesday morning. The power outage could last through midday Wednesday, the utility company said.

PG&E began notifying customer of the potential Public Safety Power Shutoff (PSPS) on Sunday afternoon, which affects 32 counties, including Alameda, Alpine, Amador, Butte, Calaveras, Colusa, Contra Costa, El Dorado, Glenn, Humboldt, Kern, Lake, Marin, Mariposa, Mendocino, Napa, Nevada, Placer, Plumas, San Mateo, Santa Clara, Santa Cruz, Shasta, Sierra, Solano, Sonoma, Stanislaus, Tehama, Trinity, Tuolumne, Yolo and Yuba.

PG&E said the Tuesday that PSPS will affect fewer residents than Saturday’s power outage, which caused an estimated 2 million to go without power over the weekend.

Kern County residents may have a bigger impact and could see their power turned off through Thursday. PG&E said this is a separate wind event, and the third power shut off for the company in a week.

According to PG&E, it is turning the power off for safety reasons as “extreme weather conditions” have been forecasted for the region. The high winds could damage its electric infrastructure, causing lines to spark if energized, increasing the “potential for rapid fire spread” of wildfires, it said.

According to officials, more than half of PG&E’s service area is in a high fire-threat region with dry grasses and high volumes of dead and dying trees, which has tripled in size over the last seven years,

"The sole purpose of PSPS is to significantly reduce catastrophic wildfire risk to our customers and communities,” Michael Lewis, senior vice president, PG&E Electric Operations said.

“We know that winds generally above 45 mph are known to cause damage to the lower-voltage distribution system and winds above 50 mph are known to cause damage to higher-voltage transmission equipment.

“As we saw in a recent PSPS event on Oct. 9, we had more than 100 instances of damage and hazards on our distribution and transmission lines from wind gusts of this strength,” he added.

PG&E has said that it has more than 6,000 workers on the ground, with 43 helicopters staged in areas impacted by Saturday’s outage that are ready to make repairs and begin restoring power when it is safe to do so.

Shares of PG&E stock plummeted 20.20% as of 10:36 a.m. ET on Monday.