More than 130,000 PG&E customers without power in SF; fire at substation could be major factor

ABC7 ^ | 12-20-25 | Anser Hassan and ABC7 Bay Area Digital Staff

[dynachrome]

bout 30% of San Francisco was blacked out Saturday, Pacific Gas & Electric Co. said, as a power outage grew to about 130,000 customers.

PG&E spokesman Edgar Hoida said the cause of the outage was under investigation.

PG&E's online outage status reported 124,555 customers without power, or 30.1% of San Francisco, at 6:44 p.m.

Outages were first reported in the Inner Sunset neighborhood at about 9:40 a.m., affecting about 14,700 customers. At 10:10 a.m., more outages were reported impacting about 25,000 customers in the Richmond District, the Presidio, Golden Gate Park, Inner Sunset District, and near the Civic Center.

Scattered outages were later reported in parts of the Tenderloin and downtown before spreading to several areas around the city, including parts of the Mission District, the Chase Center, the Western Addition and other neighborhoods.

[dynachrome]

"The problem was centered on a substation at 8th Street and Mission Streets in the South of Market neighborhood, Supervisor Matt Dorsey said on social media. The San Francisco Fire Department said they were on the scene of a fire at the substation, which was reported at 2:14 p.m."

One substation.

[Berkeley under cover]

This covers miles from 8th and mission. Domino effect?

[Steely Tom]

fire at substation could be major factor

We don't want to jump to any conclusions.

Could be a chakkra problem.

Could be global warming, or climate change, whatever they're calling it now.

[HighSierra5]

Wait till a big earthquake hits. There’s been a lot of shakin goin on around there.

[dayglored]

Power grid balance is tricky.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northeast_blackout_of_2003

[dayglored]

> This covers miles from 8th and mission. Domino effect?

Probably.

[CivilWarBrewing]

Chinese payback for seizing an oil tanker headed for China.

[dayglored]

> Could be a chakkra problem. Could be global warming, or climate change, whatever they’re calling it now.

Polar Vortex.

[gundog]

Too many electric menorahs.

[catnipman]

fires at substations could be from transformers overloading from excessive load and thermal protectors not tripping ...

if/when CA, NY, IL ever manage to pointlessly force ubiquitous electrification in lieu of cheap, reliable NG, look for all sorts of outages becoming a regular occurrence, you know, like happens in all of those 3rd world shithole countries you read about all the time ..

[House Atreides]

A taste of things to come.

[Ronaldus Magnus III]

The “midnight shoppers” will be out early.

[matt04]

Obviously, it’s Donald Trump’s fault. Impeach evil Orange Hitler! Because of his incompetence, which obviously caused the substation fire, all the drug addicts can’t see where to inject their drugs. Where’s the compassion!?

[TigersEye]

I guess people with EVs won’t be going in to work tomorrow.

[aquila48]

Well, there is an “atmospheric river” coming tonight.

[Orosius]

The groovy people need to rub their crystals harder.

[jonrick46]

It could be the substation was overloaded with the demand of all those electric cars plugged into their charging stations. The predictions about this event has happened.

[Libloather]

San Francisco power outage left 130,000 in the dark as self-driving cars stalled in middle of streets

https://nypost.com/2025/12/20/us-news/san-francisco-power-outage-leaves-130000-in-the-dark/

[Angelino97]

[OldHarbor]

When the lights go out in the City
Darkness creeps across the Bay
Oooh I want to be there
In the shitty city by the Bay