Pacific Gas & Electric
Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E) is an American investor-owned utility (IOU). The company is headquartered at Kaiser Center, in Oakland, California. PG&E provides natural gas and electricity to 5.2 million households in the northern two-thirds of California, from Bakersfield and northern Santa Barbara County, almost to the Oregon and Nevada state lines.
Overseen by the California Public Utilities Commission, PG&E is the leading subsidiary of the holding company PG&E Corporation, which has a market capitalization of $34.9 billion as of March 10, 2025. PG&E was established on October 10, 1905, from the merger and consolidation of predecessor utility companies, and by 1984 was the United States' "largest electric utility business". PG&E is one of six regulated, investor-owned electric utilities (IOUs) in California; the other five are PacifiCorp, Southern California Edison, San Diego Gas & Electric, Bear Valley Electric, and Liberty Utilities.
In 2018 and 2019, the company received widespread media notoriety when investigations by the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (Cal Fire) found the company's infrastructure primarily responsible for causing two separate devastating wildfires in California, including the 2018 Camp Fire, the deadliest wildfire in California history. Because California holds utilities financially responsible for any fires caused by their equipment, even if maintenance was properly done, the potential of $30B of liability from these fires led the company to declare Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2019. The company hoped to come out of bankruptcy by June 2020, and was successful, when U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Dennis Montali issued the final approval of the plan for PG&E to exit bankruptcy.
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