For the past few weeks, Northern and Central California have witnessed a series of intense winter storms.

Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E) has mobilized its largest storm response effort in company history.

This effort has enabled the restoration of more than 1.6 million customers who lost power since the initial storm in the series began on New Year's weekend, with about 90% of customers restored in 24 hours.

On January 9, just over 80,000 customers are without power amid this historic storm system.

"PG&E teams got prepared and in position before the first storm rolled in on New Year's Eve weekend to lessen the impact of these storms. As we make assessments, we will restore power as quickly as safety allows. Challenging conditions could delay our efforts and extend our customers' outages, but we won't rest until our last customer is safely restored," said Adam Wright, PG&E's Executive Vice President of Operations and Chief Operating Officer.

Assessments and Restorations

During storms of this magnitude, PG&E concurrently begins assessments and restoration as soon as it is safe to do so. If restoration is not possible quickly, PG&E will provide an estimated time of restoration (ETOR) within 24 hours for customers who will have extended outages.

PG&E has more than 5,000 dedicated personnel currently responding to the storm, including contractors and mutual aid from:

• Southern California.

• Canada.

• Colorado. 

• Idaho.

• New Mexico.

• Oregon.

• Utah.

• Washington.

• Wisconsin.

• Wyoming.

And additional resources are expected to arrive and assist in the coming days. Hundreds of PG&E employees are serving in the company's Emergency Operations Center as well as in regional and divisional emergency centers.

In other news, PG&E is one of the first utility companies to establish the nation’s first “vehicle-to-grid” export compensation mechanism for commercial electric vehicle charging customers in its California service area.

This will help push the adoption of electric vehicles in California and other states.