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A routine operation at two San Francisco substations triggered a massive power outage Saturday morning that knocked out electricity to about 9,400 PG&E customers — while a separate system glitch mistakenly alerted roughly 120,000 customers that they had lost power.
The blackout began around 9:45 a.m. when a protective device on the electrical system activated during the procedure.
The utility said customers in the Richmond and Golden Gate Park neighborhoods were initially affected.
The utility said customers in the Richmond and Golden Gate Park neighborhoods were initially affected.
PG&E’s outage notification system then dramatically overstated the scope of the blackout, incorrectly indicating that 120,000 San Francisco customers were without power.
“120,000 customers were never out of power,” said Edgar Hopida, a spokesman for the company, in a statement to The California Post.
Because two electrical circuits were involved, the notification system mistakenly “rolled up to a larger protective device,” generating the inflated outage figure, according to PG&E.
System operators corrected the error within about 30 minutes, updating the customer count to the actual total of roughly 9,400.
The real-world impact of the blackout extended beyond homes and businesses, as Alphabet-owned Waymo temporarily paused its robotaxi service in San Francisco on Saturday due to the power outage knocking out traffic signals.
The mistaken alert triggered outage notifications to about 120,000 customers before the error was fixed, the utility said.
The erroneous alert drew fresh attention because PG&E operates as a government-sanctioned, state-regulated monopoly across Northern California and San Francisco.
The utility has no direct competition in its service territory, while state regulators oversee its operations and approve rate increases.
An outage map showed the largest concentration of affected customers in the Richmond District, where between 500 and 4,999 customers lost power.
Smaller outages affecting between 50 and 499 customers appeared near San Jose Avenue, while scattered outages involving fewer than 50 customers were reported elsewhere in the city.
By noon, approximately 2,500 customers remained without electricity as repair crews worked at the scene and system operators shifted customers onto other circuits to restore service.
The utility pushed back its estimated restoration time from 12:30 p.m. to 2:30 p.m. and said it will investigate what caused the outage.
“The safety of our customers and hometowns is PG&E’s top priority,” the company said.
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