PG&E has agreed to provide rebates to customers affected by an intentional shutoff of electricity to its customers in mid-October, the governor announced, a revelation that PG&E later confirmed.
The one-time rebate will only apply to the roughly 738,000 customers who lost power in the Oct. 9 shutoffs. There are no current plans for similar rebates for the three shutoffs that have followed since then, said PG&E spokesperson Tamar Sarkissian, but the utility is “open to having a policy discussion with state regulators and others.”
Gov. Gavin Newsom pressured the embattled utility on Oct. 14 to provide rebates of $100 for residential customers and $250 for business customers.
“PG&E says they will compensate customers affected by these mass power shutoffs,” Newsom said in a post on his Twitter account. “Honestly, it’s the least they can do.”
At a news briefing Tuesday night, PG&E Chief Executive Officer William Johnson acknowledged that the company blundered with its efforts to intentionally shut down electricity around Oct. 9.
Among the mishaps: PG&E’s website crashed, which prevented people from finding out whether their neighborhoods would be cut off from electricity service. Plus the company fumbled some of its communications efforts.
The mistakes make refunds or bill credits the right response to help compensate affected customers.
“Some recognition of things we didn’t do well is appropriate,” Johnson said Tuesday.
The shutoff was the first of four in October that have left millions without power for days at a time. The utility is scrambling to reduce the potential that the company’s equipment or power lines might spark catastrophic wildfires.
PG&E said it has “carefully considered” Gov. Newsom’s request to provide rebates for customers who were impacted by the intentional power shutdowns of Oct. 9.
“We have agreed to move forward with a one-time bill credit for customers impacted by that event,” Johnson said Tuesday night in a prepared release.
The utility has maintained that the deliberate power cutoffs of Oct. 9 and other days are an unwanted procedure to help PG&E reduce the chances that its equipment would cause a spark that fierce winds might whip into a catastrophe amid tinder-dry conditions.
“We understand that power shutoffs are more than an inconvenience for our customers,” Johnson said. “We did not live up to their expectations when it came to communicating” about the Oct. 9 shutdowns.
In recent years, several lethal infernos have been linked to PG&E’s electricity equipment. Among the fatal blazes: a 2015 fire in Amador County and Calaveras County, blazes in 2017 in the North Bay Wine Country and nearby regions, and a 2018 fire in Butte County.
In addition, investigators are attempting to make official determinations regarding whether PG&E’s equipment caused some wildfires in 2019, including the destructive Kincade Fire in Sonoma County.
The governor and others have suggested that PG&E has been shoddy in maintaining its electricity system and lax in wildfire mitigation measures.
“Californians should not pay the price for decades of PG&E’s greed and neglect,” Newsom stated in a letter to PG&E’s CEO on Oct. 14, in demanding the rebates.
PG&E didn’t state which billing cycle would produce the one-time bill credit and didn’t specify the amount. But the company did indicate that the rebates are an unusual response for any power utility.
“This is not an industry standard practice, nor approved as part of a tariff,” Johnson said. The CEO added, “We believe it is the right thing to do for our customers in this case, given the challenges with our website and call center communications.”
At a state Public Utilities Commission meeting on Oct. 18, PG&E’s top boss, CEO Johnson, warned that the utility might trigger deliberate electricity shutdowns for the next 10 years. That’s how long it could take for PG&E to upgrade its electricity system and control vegetation and trees to a great enough extent to avoid intentional power cutoffs.
“It’s probably a 10-year timeline” to properly upgrade the PG&E system, Johnson said. The CEO added that PG&E intends to get “better every year.”
However, 10 years of intentional power shutdowns displeased Newsom, who criticized PG&E in a tweet on Tuesday.
“I don’t buy PG&E’s excuses,” the governor said in his tweet. “It doesn’t take a decade to fix this. Their years of mismanagement are over.”
Do you have tips for how to keep your food safe, your devices charged and your life disrupted as little as possible during a public safety power outage? We’d love to hear about it.
