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Three outages leave 4,487 SLO County users without power

July 30, 2022

pg&e

By KAREN VELIE

Three large outages in San Luis Obispo County have left 4,487 PG&E customers without power on Saturday afternoon, as lengthy outages have become regular occurrence in the county.

The lights went out in parts of Atascadero and Templeton to 1,707 PG&E customers at 1:09 p.m. The utility estimates power will be restored by 7:30 p.m.

Shortly afterwards, at 1:09 p.m., 1,418 PG&E customers lost power in rural Santa Margarita and Creston. PG&E estimates the power will be back on at 7:30 p.m.

At 2:58 p.m., 1,362 PG&E customers in San Luis Obispo lost power. The utility estimates the power will be back on by 9:30 p.m.

PG&E officials blame a new “fast trip” feature that automatically shuts off power when an object strikes a line in order to prevent equipment-sparked wildfires, as a primary reason for the increase in outages. Because of this, a tree branch or a bird hitting a wire can lead to a lengthy power outage.


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In just the past 4 weeks, the electricity in and around the area of my home has gone out 6 times for at least 2 hours each time. Early this morning, again for approximately 2 hours.

PG&E has become a failure due to refusing to upgrade outdated/older equipment which has caused death and destruction and most likely it was due to paying out big dividends to their shareholders. Public be damned.

Unfortunately, we the public now not only have to pay higher monthly electric bills, but also have to put up with the above mentioned outages. Despicable.


0

Just 3-4 years ago you could call a local PG&E service planner and have a new application for electric service underway in weeks. Now you apply online and it takes months. PG&E is a joke. They don’t maintain and upgrade equipment, they wait until a transformer fails or is grossly overloaded before it is replaced. I was told by PG&E “Oh we can’t reconnect your power because our transformer is at 176%. You’ll have to wait 6 months while we recalculate for a new transformer”.


1

I for one am sick and tired of the power outages. My power goes out 15-18 times per year. What happened to PG&E it used to be reliable and responsive, now it’s a third world power grid that is failing constantly.

It takes 6 hours to reset a braker that was set so low that it trips on one of the coolest days in July?

This is a racket they waste money on tree service people that I see sitting in their trucks beside the road and at area parks, give their management team big pay raises and set brakers so low they trip for no reason. Then they ask the PUC to increase rates because of the high cost of providing power to the customer, I say mismanagement and extortion. All this causes my rates to be $.31 and $.39 per kwh way higher than most of the Country.


1

PG&E ”used to be reliable and responsive” prior to the one-party rule that is in charge of California now. The ”third world power grid that is failing constantly” is the product of, and performs commensurately with, the third world style failed governance of California’s one-party crony communist Kakistocracy. PG&E’s current level of below par service is what a majority of voters and dozens of environmental advocacy groups have spent decades working towards. Besides, if an occasional short-term outage for a tiny fraction of the population can prevent wildfires, then that is a good thing.


1

“third world style failed governance of California”


In 2012, when a Republican governor was in charge, the annual deficit for the state of California was nearly $10 billion. Today, after ten years of Democratic governors, the state has a $90 billion surplus and has moved from being the sixth largest economy in the world to the fifth largest.


PG&E is not part of the state government and has fallen on hard times, primarily because of the ultra-expensive fires that have raged in this state over the last few years because of climate change. Last time I checked, a large swath of the Republican Party denied climate change and were in favor of business as usual for the fossil fuel industry. We can now see the folly of that approach.


I bought a generator a few years ago. It has been indispensable. Because of climate change, things will only get worse. At least the Democrats are looking to mitigate the calamity.


-2

With my high price increase in my power bill you would think PGE could get good equipment. More than likely it came from China where quality control doesn’t exist


3

Power in SLO was back on at 5pm, 2 hours, BFD, I was out in the yard anyway. Santa Rosa was closed between Leff and the train station with PG&E, and useless Chartered Rectum, trucks filling the block.


7