After Hearing On Mass Blackouts, PG&E Promises Change: Report

SAN FRANCISCO, CA — After facing widespread criticism over a citywide blackout that impacted hundreds of thousands of people in San Francisco two months ago, PG&E is holding itself accountable for its shortcomings, according to a report from KTVU.

During a San Francisco Board of Supervisors meeting Thursday, PG&E CEO Sumeet Singh faced dozens of San Francisco residents and business owners who talked about how the mass and sudden power outage on Dec. 20, 2025 impacted their lives.

Daniel Ramirez, a business owner and Sunet Business District spokesperson said during the meeting that although he was grateful for the $2,500 credit PG&E added to customers bills, it wasn't enough, according to the report.

"The disruptions did not end when the lights came back on," Daniel Ramirez, a business owner and Sunet Business District spokesperson said during the meeting, according to KTVU. "We had nine employees and we had to send them home. They were not able to earn their full paycheck that week."

City and state officials have scrutinized PG&E since the power outage and demanded accountability.

South Bay Democratic Rep. Ro Khanna condemned PG&E, saying the company had underinvested in safety and that the audit confirmed the utility giant should be customer-owned and not investor-owned, according to the report.

State Senator Scott Wiener, who is also running for Congress, suggested it was time to revist the idea to cut ties with the utilities company in exchange for a public utility company."

"I've seen my share of PG&E power outages in San Francisco. I've never seen anything like this," Wiener said at the time. "The scale of it, the length of it, the lack of information for hours and hours for the public."

PG&E officials believe the power outage, which left about 125,000 people in San Francisco may have been caused by a fire at a substation. A second fire at another substation in the midst of an atmospheric river on Christmas Eve also caused smaller power outage, leaving thousands more without power.

State audits performed last year at PG&E substations in the Bay Area found problems from missing fire extinguishers, bird nests in electrical equipment, non-functional cooling fans, corroded batteries and missing bolts, according to the report.

Inspectors had already raised red flags at Bay Area PG&E substations before two fires broke out.

During the hearing on Thursday, PG&E officials responded to criticism, saying they're working on the issues that led to the blackout and that they're "holding ourselves accountabel for the shortfalls that happened in terms of cutstomer and elected officials engagement, and with the emergency mangemenet team," according to KTVU.

Read more from KTVU.