Why so many power outages? Amid record heat, PG&E says, it gets technical
A weekend of high temperatures with relatively little nighttime cooling means that many residents are running their air conditioners almost around the clock.
And that nonstop demand for electricity is putting additional strain on the equipment that Pacific Gas & Electric Co. uses to route power on its system in the central San Joaquin Valley.
Typically, lower nighttime temperatures allow the oil inside power transformers to cool. But when there is high demand for electricity around the clock, those transformers get less of a chance to recover, PG&E spokesman Denny Boyles said. The result, he added, “is that the likelihood of a transformer possibly failing is increased.”
Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, Boyles added, PG&E was sometimes more concerned with other types of equipment failure, including blown fuses from sudden increases in residential demand for electricity when people got home from work between 5 and 6 p.m., often the hottest time of the day.
Over the weekend, thousands of PG&E customers experienced power outages. As many as 5,500 homes or businesses, including many in northwest Fresno, were without power Saturday evening after at least a dozen outages were reported. On Sunday evening, an outage hit a large area of northwest Fresno and cut electricity to almost 4,900 customers.
Power was restored to many customers Sunday night and early Monday, but PG&E continued to experience scattered outages that, by mid-morning, were affecting about 250 customers in Fresno and as many as 1,500 customers in a rural area southeast of the city.
Many of the larger outages on the utility’s service were cryptically blamed on “weather.” The map is based on an automated system that counts high temperatures as “weather,” as it would rain or wind or other conditions, Boyles said.
“We were hitting or skirting with all-time highs, so when we talk about the hottest days of the year and experiencing power outages, we understand the concern and the frustration of customers,” Boyles said.
The COVID-19 pandemic also forced many office workers out of their air-conditioned spaces and into working from home. That means much more residential demand during the daytime that continues into the evening hours.
High temperatures in Fresno reached 105 degrees last Thursday, 111 on Friday and Saturday, and 108 on Sunday, the National Weather Service office in Hanford reported. It was 103 in Fresno at 5 p.m. Monday.
Transformers and fuses aren’t the only potential problems. The Fresno area experiences its share of drivers who take out utility poles and disrupt electricity to nearby homes and businesses, Boyles said.
