Power restored to 16,000 in Sacramento area after tree triggers outage, SMUD says

Power has been restored to roughly 16,000 customers Monday after a tree triggered an outage in Sacramento’s eastern neighborhoods near Sacramento State, according to SMUD.

The Sacramento Municipal Utility District reported at 2:34 p.m. that several thousand homes and business lost power in the Campus Commons areas and neighborhood west of Rosemont. Power was restored to the area around 3:50 p.m.

A spokesman for SMUD said the outage was caused by a tree rubbing power lines and not a rolling blackout due to the heat wave.

Woodland hit by afternoon outage

An outage affecting 1,616 Woodland customers was caused by a transformer failure around 1:20 p.m. Monday, according to PG&E.

A spokesperson for Pacific Gas and Electric Co. said that the outage is ongoing due to heat-related impacts.

A troubleman is on the way to the location and will arrive around 4:30 p.m., according to the spokesperson. PG&E said they hope to restore power sometime tonight.

Flex Alerts continue amid heat wave

The state’s electricity system is under intense demand due to the heat.

Utilities were asking Californians to turn up their thermostats to 78 degrees late Monday afternoon into the early evening to save power. While SMUD’s grid is not part of the Independent System Operator, which called for the sixth Flex Alert in a row this evening between 4 and 10 p.m., the Sacramento-based utility had its hands full with near-record power demands.

The ISO, which runs the electricity grid through most of California, declared a Stage 1 emergency alert Monday, a sign that supplies were turning increasingly tight as temperatures soared in the midst of a heat wave gripping California.

Whether SMUD would be able to share power with the ISO’s statewide system “will have to be a gametime decision,” said SMUD spokeswoman Lindsay VanLaningham said earlier Monday. “If we have extra, we will.”

This story was originally published September 5, 2022 at 3:06 PM.