Underground transformer fire causes outage in downtown San Francisco

What happened

Pacific Gas & Electric said an underground transformer fire on Clay Street near Montgomery, in downtown San Francisco, knocked out power at about 9 p.m. on the Wednesday night described in reporting dated 26 April 2023. The transformer burned electrical wiring and circuits underground. Nearly 10,000 customers lost supply. Power was restored to some customers overnight, but as many as 6,000 were still without electricity early the next morning, and nearly 500 remained without power late that afternoon.

The reported outage areas were the Financial District, Marina, Russian Hill and parts of Chinatown. The city's emergency operations centre was activated and worked with the company. The company had hoped to restore power by noon; its outage map later indicated that some locations might not be restored until 11 p.m. the following night.

Contributing factors

The cause of the transformer fire was not reported.

Lessons learned

1. An underground transformer fire can damage nearby wiring and circuits and leave thousands of customers without supply well into the next day.
2. Early restoration times should be checked against later outage information, because repairs underground can take longer than first expected.
3. Coordination between the network operator and the city emergency operations centre helps establish how far an underground fault has spread.

Source

News report via Google News