A failed generator forced San Diego Gas & Electric to cut power to more than 115,000 customers amid record-breaking heat Sunday afternoon, the company said.
The widespread outage occurred just after 1 p.m. when SDG&E said they received a call from the California Independent System Operator (CAISO), a group that controls the state’s power grid, telling them they needed to immediately cut power to 115,000 customers after the generator went offline unexpectedly.
SDG&E told NBC7 they didn’t have time to warn people of the outage, later adding customer safety and safety and satisfaction is their number one priority.
Eleven minutes after the received the message from CAISO, they cut the power. SDG&E said they were ordered to drop 150 megawatts of load.
The outages ranged from Mission Valley to Clairemont to Escondido to as far north as San Clemente and lasted from approximately 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. A spokeswoman for CAISO said they are investigating what happened, but said the incident was unplanned.
They added that they could not share what power plant went offline for “reliability and security reasons”, but said the plant was in the San Diego area and it serves SDG&E customers. According to a tweet by Assembly Speaker Toni Atkins, the power plant that went offline is the Otay Mesa plant, although SDG&E and The California ISO wouldn't confirm that.
During the outage, many rushed to check the SDG&E outage map, but the website reportedly crashed for many customers looking to find outage information. An SDG&E spokesman also said they had not received complaints about their website issues Sunday.
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In May, SDG&E said it would have enough resources to meet the summer power demand.
The Escondido Police Department said during that outage, so many people called 911 that the department experienced a 100% increase in 911 calls.
“Nearly all of these calls were not emergencies, and were simply inquiries as to why the power was out,” the department said in a statement.
Instead of calling 911, the department recommends calling 211 instead or checking the SDG&E website.
Officials will not reveal why the generator failed, what the problem was, whether or not SDG&E is responsible for the losses or damages caused from the outage or if there was any other way SDG&E could have made sure their customers received power.
The outages come amid record-breaking heat across San Diego County. Montgomery Field's previous record of 87 was broken earlier Sunday when temperatures were recorded as high as 96.
SDG&E calls the incident very rare and says they do not expect it to happen again anytime soon.
