|
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
|
In the past, summer usually meant one undesirable trend for many Pleasanton residents: the return of sporadic, and at times long-lasting, power outages.
But as PG&E completed its 11th “reliability project” this past Thursday in the northwest area of Pleasanton, local elected officials said they hope those days are behind the city.
“Being here on the west side and experiencing all the outages, I’m looking forward to a relatively reduced outage summer,” Councilmember Jeff Nibert told the Pleasanton Weekly. “I think all of Pleasanton is looking forward to that as well.”
Pleasanton residents have been complaining for years about recurring power outages that have left them without electricity for hours at a time — some even saying they’ve experienced multiple outages in a single week.
In 2024, residents told the Weekly about the extreme heat at the time causing multiple power outages a week, with some of them lasting hours. That same year, Jake Zigelman, the vice president of the Bay Area region at PG&E, spoke at a council meeting to reassure residents the utility company was doing everything it could to address those complaints.
Just one year later, however, the same issues continued, leaving dozens of residents frustrated at the utility company. These frustrations were voiced during an October 2025 informational night where residents reiterated their distrust with the utility company’s ability to address these power outages over the past several years.
During that same meeting, PG&E representatives went over a list of projects the company was going to implement in order to further address the outages. And according to the utility company, it has now completed 11 of those reliability projects since October.
These projects, which are expected to prevent the frequency and duration of outages and reduce the number of customers impacted, ranged from underground work to pole replacements, according to PG&E.
The company carried out its 11th reliability project this past Thursday at the DoubleTree by Hilton Hotel and Bay Club parking lot on Johnson Drive, where PG&E representatives met with local leaders to explain the work they were doing and how it will hopefully help address Pleasanton’s power outage issues.
Nibert was one of the local elected officials who visited the work site that day. A resident of the west side of Pleasanton, Nibert said he has experienced multiple power outages in the past where he said the power would go off, come back on and then go out a minute later.
And while Nibert acknowledges the fact residents in the past have had concerns over PG&E response to these recurring power outages and have questioned whether the utility company has actually done anything to address these concerns, the councilman also said these reliability projects might be a step in the right direction.
“The fact that we’re here celebrating the completion of those means they kept their word,” Nibert said. “So hopefully, over the summer, it’ll stand the test of the hot temperatures that we have.”
According to PG&E spokesperson Tamar Sarkissian, last week’s work consisted of replacing what is known as a switch. The new device, Sarkissian said, allows PG&E field personnel to “safely switch customers during an outage without de-energizing additional customers”.
The switch also helps “improve system visibility for PG&E’s Distribution Operators, allowing them to pinpoint fault locations more efficiently”.
“With this enhanced capability, operators will be able to isolate issues faster and restore service to customers more quickly,” Sarkissian said.
Zigelman was one of the PG&E representatives at the event who reiterated how the nearly dozen projects that the company has completed since last fall will result in “fewer, shorter and smaller outages”.
“When an outage does occur, this piece of equipment will allow us to isolate a smaller area much faster,” he said. “So it’ll be a smaller outage affecting fewer customers.”
Zigelman said the new piece of equipment will also improve the city’s power grid overall as a whole.
“Anytime you install new equipment with new functionality like automation, it helps reduce the total number of outage minutes,” he said.
Apart from reducing power outage durations, he also said it will also help reduce the number of customers impacted and the number of customers who experience repeat outages, which has been something that many residents across Pleasanton.
When asked if PG&E has seen any significant improvements to Pleasanton’s power reliability since last fall, Zigelman said anecdotally they have. He added it’s still a little too early to forecast all of the exact benefits these projects will have for the city.
He said the real test will be this year’s summer months and how the improvements will hold up during peak power activity and wildfire season, which is when PG&E tends to see more outages.
“All of this new equipment means that those outages — any outages that we do experience over the next few months in that peak wildfire and summer heat season — will be fewer, shorter and smaller than they otherwise would have been,” Zigelman said.
Pleasanton Mayor Jack Balch was the other elected official who visited the work site last week. He noted how great it was to see the projects being carried out after years of residents voicing their frustrations and mayors in the Tri-Valley, including himself, meeting with PG&E leadership to elevate those concerns.
Now, with the summer months coming up and the heat already engulfing the Tri-Valley, Balch said he expects the city will see an immediate impact thanks to all of these reliability projects.
“From my perspective as the mayor of Pleasanton, I am ecstatic that PG&E has been a partner to deliver and provide these investments in our community,” Balch said.
Balch also noted how quickly PG&E was able to accelerate the work in Pleasanton, especially given how the utility company’s initial capital improvement schedule had a lot of this work being completed in 2028.
And while Balch acknowledged residents’ desire to see immediate action taken to address these power outages, he also said the reality is that electricity is a very highly regulated industry when it comes to capital investments and that PG&E had to follow a process which, in his opinion, resulted in a string of projects that will now improve the city’s power grid moving forward.
“I think that people, if they take an overall look at the steps PG&E had to take to get to even here, they will be very pleased with … PG&E,” Balch said.
Zigelman finally added that PG&E’s work is never done, noting how there is always still more to do when it comes to improving the area’s power grid.
“We’re investing in the system and doing more work,” he said, noting that while he didn’t have a specific timeline for additional projects, there is at least one more coming up before the summer is over.
“All of this work is improving the overall asset health of the electrical grid in the area, which has reliability benefits,” Zigelman said.
