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Pleasanton residents have expressed their growing frustration with what seems to be a recurring trend during the hot summer months: power outages.
Last week was a particularly bad one for many residents who, according to city officials, had been experiencing outages all week.
One Nextdoor user posted on Saturday that they had just experienced their fourth outage over the course of four to five weeks and that the first two lasted over 20 hours. Others on Facebook also posted the day before about another power outage that day having affected their day, which prompted Pleasanton Mayor Jack Balch to respond that night.
“It’s been a tough week for many of our west Pleasanton residents, three separate power outages and a major water line break have disrupted daily schedules, work, and quality of life,” he wrote in his Aug. 8 post.
He told the Weekly Monday evening that even he was affected by the three outages that occurred Saturday and that he and the city of Pleasanton are committed to doing what they can to help address the issue.
“Given the warmer weather and our community’s overall experience, it’s my understanding that city staff (are) following up with PG&E to discuss the recent outages in more detail and get an update on future reliability plans,” Balch told the Weekly. “From there, we will evaluate next steps.”
Last year, roughly around the same time, many residents had taken to social media to voice their frustrations with the power company’s yearly power outages with at least one resident having told the Weekly that during the hot months, the outages can occur as much as three times in one week.
Michael Austin is a longtime Pleasanton resident who has been affected by the latest string of power outages.
Austin said in his neighborhood they had eight power outages over the past six weeks with the longest one lasting about 12 hours. He said while roughly half of the residents in his neighborhood have solar-powered back up generators, including himself, the neighbors who don’t have been really feeling the impacts of the outages.
He also said as a 25-year Pleasanton resident, he remembers a time when these frequent power outages were uncommon. Austin questioned whether there was a connection between the frequency of the outages and the West Dublin/Pleasanton BART station as he noted he first started to observe an increase in power outages following the station’s opening.
As someone directly impacted by the outages, Austin said he does not think PG&E is transparent enough with its customers and that the company needs to do better with maintaining its equipment in order to avoid future outages.
The city’s communications manager Heather Tiernan said PG&E confirmed that the most recent power outage was caused by underground equipment issues.
“We at PG&E work to ensure all our lines, both underground and overhead, are operating safely and reliably,” Tamar Sarkissian, a PG&E spokesperson, told the Weekly. “However, we can experience emergencies, weather-related outages, animal contact and maintenance that may result in varying power outages.”
As for the previous outages, Balch said PG&E told the city the outage Friday was caused by an Enhanced Powerline Safety Settings (EPSS) event and that the company was “using helicopter patrols to inspect the line.” He said he could not comment on the cause for any other previous outages.
According to Sarkissian, EPSS are settings implemented on powerlines that help protect high fire-risk areas.
“Enhanced Powerline Safety Settings are one of many layers of wildfire protection in PG&E’s tool box,” Sarkissian told the Weekly. “When hazards contact powerlines, they can cause ignitions that can potentially lead to wildfires. EPSS turns off the power to an enabled line in less than one-tenth of a second if it detects a hazard coming into contact with a powerline.”
She said the power company saw a 65% reduction in ignitions on powerlines that use the setting last year in high fire-threat districts compared to previous years.
However, while she said the settings help keep roughly 1.8 million customers safe by preventing wildfires, the power company also recognizes how they can result in unplanned power outages.
“We know how difficult it is to be without power, which is why we are continuing to find ways to lessen the impact of power outages on our customers,” Sarkissian said.
Initial estimates for the West Pleasanton outages earlier last week, per the company’s public outage map, were anywhere from 500 to nearly 5,000 residents affected, with early reports suggesting a total of around 3,000 customers having been impacted. Balch said by the time he addressed the outages in his Friday Facebook post, that number had been reduced to about 1,800.
Balch said the following day (Aug. 9) the city experienced three additional outages of “varying durations” in the south and west side of Pleasanton. He said that same day, the power company told the city those outages were caused by a “breaker-level outage initially affecting 4,462 customers.”
Balch said while the group of people who were affected during the Aug. 9 outages did not overlap with the previous outages, “roughly 7,500 customer accounts were affected over the course of the week”.
Tiernan told the Weekly that the city has had recent discussions with PG&E leadership and that the power company is “committed to sharing information about completed projects, as well as regular updates on system improvements.”
Balch also said that although the city does not control PG&E’s system, officials have been in more regular contact with the power company’s team during recent power outages in order to “ensure our challenges are elevated”.
The five Tri-Valley mayors and city managers recently met with PG&E leadership during a meeting that was organized by Innovation Tri-Valley to address the power outage situation. Balch said both immediate reliability concerns along with long-term infrastructure needs were raised during the meeting.
“While each city communicated specific challenges, common themes included reliability, connectivity for new businesses, and additional capacity for future growth (including AI, high-tech, and EV infrastructure),” Balch said.
He said the power company told the Tri-Valley leaders that it is “focused on these priorities while balancing safety for their customers and employees”.
“For Pleasanton, I emphasized that investment in reliability is critical, not only for residents and businesses now, but also for public trust, our future economy and our electrification goals in our Climate Action Plan,” Balch said. “We value the partnership of our Tri-Valley neighbors in advocating together, which gives our concerns more weight than a single community might have alone.”
Balch also pointed out that during its Oct. 15, 2024 meeting, the City Council at the time received a presentation from PG&E on the company’s plans to address the outages at the time and plans for future infrastructure improvements to prevent such outages from happening.
“In October 2024, PG&E presented their planned investments for Pleasanton, and we are actively following up on the status of those investments,” Balch said. “They had mentioned that they had refiled for an additional ($3 billion) in funding with an expected ruling in spring 2025.”
And according to Sarkissian, PG&E is also committed to “improving reliability in the area and are currently working on a project to help reduce the impact of future outages”.
“We know how frustrating and disruptive these recent outages were for the Pleasanton community,” Sarkissian said. “In addition, we are exploring options for animal and bird enhanced protections, trimming trees near powerlines to reduce vegetation-related outages and continuously inspecting and maintaining our equipment.”
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There are no overhead wires in this northwest section of Pleasanton. So, it is not birds, it is not animals, it is not fire sensitivity, it is not an act of God. All PG&E is underground. PG&E vaults are scattered throughout the neighborhoods.
The vault located at Edgewood Way and Muirwood Drive has blown out three times. PG&E brings in a new vault from some faraway place (which is why the outage is 12 or more hours). They set the new replacement vault in place, hook it up, and forget it. They never come back to service it, inspect it; they simply replace it when it blows out again.
These multiple outages started occurring after the Dublin Stonerisge Bart stations opened for riders.
New research, that the city of Pleasanton does appear to share or closely coordinate its electrical infrastructure with Bart.– particularly around the West Dublin/Pleasanton Bart station.
The Workday headquarters project sits on Bart-owned property near the West Dublin/Pleasanton station.
The development surrounds a pre-existing Bart power substation, which supplies electricity to the station and tracks.
The Workday garage is built directly above the main power supply lines for Bart, requiring extensive coordination to protect and maintain access to those lines.
The project involved close collaboration between Bart, PG&E, and the city of Pleasanton to ensure utility systems were compatible and secure.
What it Means for Outages: Because BART’s infrastructure is so tightly integrated with local utilities.
A fault or overload in BART’s substation could potentially affect nearby n
Continued: A fault or overload in BART’s substation could potentially affect nearby neighborhoods.
Maintenance or upgrades to BART’s systems might require temporary rerouting or shutdowns that ripple into the city’s grid.
Emergency systems (like the joint Pleasanton/BART police center) also rely on shared power access, adding complexity to load management.
“If you’ve noticed outages near the station, it’s entirely plausible that BART’s infrastructure could be involved-especially if the outages coincide with maintenance, construction, or high train activity”.