PG&E: It will take time until outages not needed

The chief executive of California’s largest utility says it will take about a decade for Pacific Gas and Electric Co. to get to the point where widespread safety outages are not necessary when fire danger is high.

PG&E Corp. CEO Bill Johnson told state regulators Friday he expects the utility to get better with each new preemptive outage as it works to upgrade its equipment so blackouts affect fewer people.

Appearing before an emergency meeting of the California Public Utilities Commission, Johnson said the Oct. 9 outage was the right call but said the utility could have done much better executing it.

PG&E shut off power to more than 2 million people last week because of fears that dangerous winds could knock down utility equipment and spark wildfires.

Customers complained of overloaded call centers and a crashing website that made getting information difficult.

AP Only 2019