It looks like they could have been spending a lot more on maintenance, prior to the lack of maintenance causing the disaster in 2018.
Neglecting maintenance is nothing new for PG&E.
We live in Sacramento. Our electricity is provided by the Sacramento Municipal Utility District (SMUD). SMUD came into being in 1923, when the city voted to create their own community owned, not-for-profit utility. in order to do so, they would purchase the infrastructure from PG&E.
It was 23 years later, in March 1946, that the California Supreme Court rejected PG&E’s last petition to halt the sale, and the purchase finally went ahead. At that point, the electrical distribution system that SMUD acquired was a patchwork of disparate systems that had been merged together over the years by PG&E, with some of it dating back to 1895.
So this is really just business as usual for PG&E…and since they are “too big to fail”, it’s hard to envision anything changing any time soon.
What about all the money their clients lost because they chose to pre-emptively shut off the power?
What if I lost, say, four days pay because the company I work at cannot run without electricity? What about the freezer full of food that I now basically have to throw out?
Do they just get to shrug and say Sucks to be you?
As I understand it - pretty much, yes. They have very wide latitude to act in the name of safety.
Several years ago, SMUD wanted to expand operation into Yolo County, across the river from Sacramento County. PG&E spent a fortune fighting it, and it lost at the polls.
PG&E employees had a big party at a winery with 50 of their top customers just a day or two before the shutoffs.
To summarize these posts: PG&E, by many accounts, prioritized uses for revenues—executive pay among them—over needed-but-neglected maintenance and upgrading of equipment.
The semi-governmental-monopoly aspect of PG&E’s structure makes this situation a massive transfer of wealth from homeowners in areas served by PG&E—areas which appear almost certain to undergo additional power outages this year and for years to come—to PG&E executives and shareholders, as property values drop precipitously.
If you own property in an affected area, you will not be able to sell it for the price you would have been able to command in the absence of these power cuts.
This will affect not only wealthy homeowners, but plenty of less-prosperous ones, too. The value of their property has been damaged through no fault of their own. They are subsidizing the bad decisions of PG&E executives.
Yes, and your insurance agent will say the same thing as there was no actual adverse covered event such as a power line melted by wildfire, or a power plant failure. The economic losses from this one event will easily be in the billions. Lost food, lost wages, more car wrecks than usual, and there’s been at least one death attributed to the PSPS.
The only winners are the folks who sell generators. I also would not be surprised to see people suddenly take interest in who their power company will be when they move, and an address served by SMUD will be preferred over one served by PG&E.
The store where I work has some pretty large generators standing by for power outages. They can run the freezers/coolers for awhile. We have monthly “generator tests” in the wee hours to make sure everything is ready to go and functional. Purchasing, setting up, and just as importantly maintaining them in a state of readiness is not cheap. The company I work for is large enough that they can easily cover this, but for a small business? That may not be feasible. Some sort of generator, yes, but one large enough to really save stock and keep going for the better part of a week? Hard to say. You need fuel for those suckers, too. And a safe means to store it on-site.
From what I hear, they are estimating business losses in the billions. PG&E is not popular right now.
Geez. Just another ‘screw the little guy’ situation, I guess. It’s not bad enough suffering without lights/heat/air for days on end, but they get to take who knows how much money out of your pocket and skip merrily away from the mess?
I don’t know what I’d do if I lived in one of their areas. A report I heard said these types of blackouts might be an on-going thing, year after year???
It will be an on-going thing only if the customers and citizens of California allow PG&E to continue to operate the way it has been. FFS, the current American economic model is not sustainable.
The governor and other leaders are very vocally upset about this. I expect there will be changes pushed through the legislature.
Is it any surprise that the land of turds and needles can’t clear a few trees to keep the lights on?
It’ll only be on-going until PG&E gets the rate increase they are asking for – the increase so the customers will pay f(again) or doing the needed maintenance that PG&E has been deferring so they can spend the money on executive bonuses, stockholder dividends, and wining & dining their executive employees.
And they’ll probably want to slip some language in there to ensure PG&E is exempt from liability for damages from any new wildfires they start – classify them as ‘acts of God’ or something else exempt from lawsuits.
You’re not that far off. California has a legal doctrine called inverse condemnation that holds PG&E accountable for damages even if they weren’t negligent per se. Proper safety checks made, but PG&E equipment still caused a fire due to an act of God? PG&E pays. It’s why PG&E is on the hook for every single fire they cause, no matter how good their maintenance is. They have a very strong incentive to cut power as conservatively and broadly as possible because every disaster that can be sourced to them, costs them.
There has been some talk of changing that to “at fault” only damages, which then shifts costs to insurers and home owners( who ultimately take most of the cost with higher premiums ). However it is ALREADY very difficult and expensive to get fire insurance in a lot of California. And it might require a constitutional amendment( CA constitution )to change the law.
And of course PG&E IS at fault much of the time, because they’re a shitty utility that has traditionally skimped on trained labor and necessary repairs to maximize shareholder profits.
I think that depends on which lobbyists or ummmm “consultants and advisors” bribe which politicians and for how much. Corruption isn’t just a Washington “thing”.
Yep. After the whole “blow up the suburbs” mess, followed by the “corrupt the oversight process” mess, there’s not a lot of sympathy for PG&E’s problems to be found around here.
Oh, is this thread going again? I just got a text about ten minutes ago that they may cut power on us again starting Wednesday.
My power didn’t go out, but it sure did at the school I work at. That means no work for Jumpbass and, of course, no pay*. Again. Fuckers.
*I’m not a regular school district employee, I’m a contractor for the music booster club.