Coronavirus: PG&E power shut-off in Concord hints at challenges to come during fire season - San Francisco Chronicle

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Pacific Gas and Electric Co. cut power Friday to more than 200 customers in Concord to finish a wildfire safety project, providing the first example of how shut-offs could pose challenges as the weather heats up and people are told to stay home during the coronavirus outbreak.

Temperatures in some communities Friday were expected to be nearly 20 degrees above normal for this time of year, according to the National Weather Service.

In all, 232 customers — residences and businesses — were affected by the outage, utility officials said. PG&E anticipated the work would last five hours and end around 1 p.m.

PG&E officials said the planned outage was needed to install a new device that can automatically de-energize the electric distribution circuit during high-risk fire conditions. The device can also decrease the number of customers affected by public safety power shut-offs, which the utility company executed multiple times last fall during extreme wildfire conditions as a precautionary measure.

“In order to be effective, the project needs to be complete prior to wildfire season,” PG&E spokeswoman Tamar Sarkissian said. “We apologize to our customers for this disruption, especially during these unique and challenging circumstances.”

Shut-offs like those last year, which included PG&E cutting power during extreme weather conditions and then gradually restoring electricity over the course of days to ensure equipment wasn’t damaged, could have a devastating impact as people shelter in place, stock up on food and rely on air conditioning during the summer.

A dry winter also created drought conditions across the state, which could fuel wildfires.

A ridge of high pressure over the state this week injected warm temperatures into Southern California and Arizona, and the heat stretched into the Bay Area due to an offshore flow, or wind blowing from land to ocean, weather officials said.

The daily high for Concord was expected to reach 94 degrees on Friday — approximately 19 degrees above normal, according to the National Weather Service.

“One of the hottest days this spring for the inland areas,” said Ryan Walbrun, a meteorologist with the weather service.

But, he added, “We are not quite in record territory.”

South of Concord, in Livermore, temperatures were projected to hit 95 degrees, which would be 20 degrees above normal. The heat was expected to extend throughout the Bay Area on Friday before cooling off over the weekend.

In San Francisco, the daily high was expected to reach 74 degrees Friday while inland areas were predicted to reach highs in the 80s and mid-90s.

“Kind of a peak of the heat, so to speak,” Walbrun said.

PG&E officials said that planned outages in Northern California during the shelter-in-place order and throughout the Bay Area will be “limited to critical and essential wildfire mitigation projects and maintenance.”

“When planned outages are required for critical and essential work, PG&E pledges to limit the number and duration of planned outages, to the extent possible,” Sarkissian said, noting that the Concord outage was originally scheduled to span 10 hours, but officials reduced it to five.

“We always want to identify ways to do this critical work with the least amount of impact to customers as possible, and we took a closer look and identified a way to do that,” Sarkissian said.

Alejandro Serrano is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: alejandro.serrano@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @serrano_alej

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