San Francisco Renews Push to Break from PG&E
Following several major blackouts, San Francisco lawmakers are intensifying efforts to break away from utility provider PG&E. The proposal, which aims to establish a municipal power authority, is gaining support due to persistent concerns about service reliability. The move seeks to give the city local control over its power supply.
- A major catalyst for the renewed push was a series of blackouts in December 2025, one of which was caused by a fire in a PG&E substation and left approximately 130,000 homes and businesses without power. - State Senator Scott Wiener has introduced Senate Bill 875 to simplify the process for municipalities like San Francisco to acquire electrical infrastructure from private utilities through eminent domain. This legislation aims to counteract what Wiener describes as decades of obstruction by investor-owned utilities. - San Francisco has a long history of attempting to create a municipal utility, including an unsuccessful $2.5 billion offer in 2019 to purchase PG&E's local power grid. The city has since petitioned the California Public Utilities Commission to determine a fair market price for the assets. - The city's Public Utilities Commission (SFPUC) already generates a significant portion of the city's electricity through Hetch Hetchy Power and a community choice aggregation program called CleanPowerSF. Together, these programs serve over 75% of the electricity consumed in San Francisco. - Proponents of the public power initiative argue that it will lead to lower rates, pointing to the fact that San Francisco residents pay some of the highest electricity rates in the country. They also cite the success of municipal utilities in other cities like Sacramento and Palo Alto, which have significantly lower rates. - PG&E opposes the move, arguing that a government takeover would increase rates for customers. The utility contends that San Francisco has significantly undervalued the infrastructure and that the city would also need to cover the costs of separating its grid from PG&E's larger network. - The SFPUC has a 10-year capital improvement plan of $11.8 billion, with 10% allocated to the Power enterprise, which includes the expansion of public power. The commission has also highlighted that PG&E's obstruction on various projects has cost the city an estimated $28 million since 2018 in additional costs and delays.
