"PG&E, the utility company that last week reintroduced one third of San Franciscans to the Dickensian joys of wearing coats indoors and tabulating the losses of spoiled food by candlelight, is not popular. Last night, in a move that would be on the nose if you could locate your face in the dark, a planned power outage was rudely preceded by an unplanned power outage."
"PG&E was once a City Hall darling: 14 years ago Mayor Ed Lee blithely described it as a " great company that gets it." Nobody's talking like that anymore. Beating up on the monopolistic utility is now great politics: If the energy generated by local politicians gnashing their teeth and shaking their fists could be harnessed and shunted into the city's power lines, San Francisco would be well on its way to opening up a municipal utility."
PG&E caused recent planned and unplanned power outages that left many residents without heat and refrigeration. The company has a history of catastrophic incidents, including an explosion in a Peninsula town, deadly wildfires, two bankruptcies, felony convictions, and a federal judge's description of a "crime spree" and a "continuing menace to California." Public sentiment toward PG&E has shifted from past praise to hostility, and local political energy favors challenging the monopoly. San Francisco offered $2.5 billion in 2019 to buy the city's electrical infrastructure; PG&E rejected the offer. The city later filed a valuation petition with the California Public Utilities Commission in July 2021.
Read at Mission Local
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