{"id":497429,"date":"2026-10-15T23:36:17","date_gmt":"2026-10-15T23:36:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/497429\/"},"modified":"2026-10-15T23:36:17","modified_gmt":"2026-10-15T23:36:17","slug":"absurd-city-officials-laugh-off-pges-20b-price-tag-for-san-franciscos-grid","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/497429\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Absurd\u2019: City officials laugh off PG&E\u2019s $20B price tag for San Francisco\u2019s grid"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cAbsurd.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cFantasy.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cInflated.\u201d<\/p>\n

When reacting to Pacific Gas & Electric\u2019s price tag for its San Francisco grid \u2014 a whopping $20 billion<\/a> \u2014 city officials pulled no punches Thursday.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a ridiculous number,\u201d said Supervisor Myrna Melgar. \u201cThis is like selling your house, and you want to get the most.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

To put it into perspective: The city\u2019s annual budget is $16.9 billion. The Warriors are worth (opens in new tab)<\/a> $14.5 billion. The GDP of Afghanistan is about (opens in new tab)<\/a> $17 billion.<\/p>\n

So why did PG&E throw out the big figure \u2014 nearly six times the price the city put on the utility\u2019s assets?<\/p>\n

\"APG&E CEO Patti Poppe offered up the $20 billion figure Wednesday. | Source: Photo by Ilya S. Savenok\/Getty Images for GE<\/p>\n

Supervisor Stephen Sherrill summed it up as a negotiating strategy. \u201cI\u2019m not surprised to hear PG&E anchor their pricing at an incredibly high end,\u201d he said. \u201cThese are opening salvos.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Other city officials shared similar sentiments, noting that the math doesn\u2019t add up. \u201cPG&E\u2019s entire electric system is worth about $60 billion, and San Francisco accounts for only a tiny part of that \u2014 representing about 5% of PG&E\u2019s electricity system demand,\u201d said Nancy Crowley, a spokesperson for the city\u2019s Public Utilities Commission. \u201cWe\u2019ve gone to the state utility regulator to get an impartial assessment of what the assets San Francisco wants to buy are really worth.\u201d The SFPUC would be in charge of the public power system if the city were to take over the grid.<\/p>\n

City Attorney David Chiu described PG&E\u2019s price as \u201cquite bold.\u201d He added that San Francisco has \u201chad 40 large-scale outages in the last year,\u201d referring to a figure the city cited in a letter<\/a> to PG&E this month. \u201cPG&E has not provided any information to back up their absurdly inflated number, but we look forward to learning more through the CPUC valuation process.\u201d<\/p>\n

There\u2019s one person who remains tight-lipped about it all: Mayor Daniel Lurie.<\/p>\n

In an interview with The Standard on Thursday morning at Salesforce Park, Lurie said \u201call options are on the table\u201d on the issue of public power. When pressed on what would be the deciding factors in his decision-making, he said, \u201cI\u2019m not happy with the performance of PG&E right now, and I\u2019m going to leave it at that, because it still needs to go through a lot of process before we can make a determination.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

The answer is in line with The Standard\u2019s previous reporting on Lurie\u2019s position<\/a> on public power: He\u2019s skeptical about the process but also angry at PG&E, especially since the December blackout that left wide swaths of the city without power.<\/p>\n

A possible takeover of PG&E\u2019s grid has been discussed for decades. December\u2019s blackout prompted increased calls for a divorce between the city and the utility, and there\u2019s widespread support among the Board of Supervisors to take such action. The board unanimously rejected<\/a> the utility\u2019s bureaucratic maneuver to delay the takeover through a California Environmental Quality Act appeal.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"AMayor Daniel Lurie has stayed out of the fray on the PG&E takeover issue. | Source: Morgan Ellis\/The Standard<\/p>\n

The city has argued that a municipal-owned utility, as opposed to PG&E\u2019s investor-owned model, would be cheaper for ratepayers. But PG&E has opposed the idea for years, claiming that the city is in no position to take over its infrastructure.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The $20 billion figure, announced Wednesday evening by PG&E CEO Patti Poppe, is part of an ongoing evaluation proceeding at the California Public Utilities Commission to determine the value of San Francisco\u2019s grid. The proceeding, started under Mayor London Breed\u2019s administration, will culminate in state regulators placing a price tag on the city\u2019s electrical system. In April, the city revealed its own number: $3.4 billion, stating that this was \u201cbased on new information, including additional asset details identified by PG&E and updated cost estimates.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jennifer Robison, a spokesperson for PG&E, said Thursday that the two figures \u2014 the city\u2019s and the utility\u2019s \u2014 are \u201cnot an apples-to-apples comparison,\u201d explaining that San Francisco\u2019s estimate does not include the totality of expenses associated with a public power takeover. Robison said the city\u2019s missing expenditures include severance, which is the price of shifting costs to remaining PG&E customers for mandated statewide programs like wildfire risk reduction. (Robison did not comment on the city\u2019s claim that the total value of PG&E\u2019s system is $60 billion.)<\/p>\n

\u201cMy coworkers and I love serving San Francisco. San Francisco\u2019s expectations are high, and we intend to measure up,\u201d Poppe said in a statement Wednesday. \u201cWe have 600 people who serve you every day, and if San Francisco were to take over those assets, those people would leave. I imagine a day when a whole convoy of blue-and-white trucks are driving across the Bay Bridge heading to Oakland, never to come back. I don\u2019t think that\u2019s in San Francisco\u2019s best interest.\u201d<\/p>\n

Before San Francisco makes the final plunge for public power, there are hurdles to overcome. The first step is the back-and-forth between the city and PG&E at the CPUC.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The utility will provide more details on its rationale for the $20 billion figure in its response to the CPUC on Tuesday. According to the SFPUC, the city has until Feb. 22 to respond to that, and PG&E can respond again by March 24. Evidentiary hearings could take place in the spring or summer.<\/p>\n

\"AThe SoMa substation that sparked the December blackout. | Source: Jessica Christian\/SF Chronicle\/AP<\/p>\n

A lawsuit could stretch out the process for years.<\/p>\n

The CPUC did not respond to a request for comment.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Some don\u2019t feel the city will get a fair shake during the state proceedings.<\/p>\n

Loretta Lynch, former president of the CPUC and a supporter of public power, said she is concerned that state regulators will be overly deferential to the utility in the valuation proceedings, a criticism (opens in new tab)<\/a> made by other officials over the years.<\/p>\n

She compared the situation to Volodymyr Zelensky negotiating with Vladimir Putin \u2014 San Francisco being the president of Ukraine, and PG&E being the president of Russia.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m worried the CPUC is Donald Trump,\u201d Lynch said, referring to criticism that the president is too obedient to Putin.<\/p>\n

Lynch, who has observed the public power debate for decades, said the $20 billion figure puts the takeover issue \u201cat the end of the beginning.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThis will be one of the defining issues for the future of our city,\u201d she said. \u201cIt will define who we are as San Francisco.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cAbsurd.\u201d \u201cFantasy.\u201d \u201cInflated.\u201d When reacting to Pacific Gas & Electric\u2019s price tag for its San Francisco grid \u2014…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":497430,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[26034,14047,4752,57174,636,3604,5653,52993,101,103,102,104,106,105,37511],"class_list":["post-497429","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-francisco","tag-blackout","tag-california-public-utilities-commission","tag-city-hall","tag-cleanpowersf","tag-daniel-lurie","tag-pge","tag-power-outages","tag-public-utilities-commission","tag-san-francisco","tag-san-francisco-headlines","tag-san-francisco-news","tag-sf","tag-sf-headlines","tag-sf-news","tag-sf-reality-check"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/497429","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=497429"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/497429\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/497430"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=497429"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=497429"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=497429"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}