Pacific Gas and Electric

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Pacific Gas and Electric Company

logo
legal form Corporation
ISIN US69331C1080
founding 1905
Seat San Francisco , United States
management Geisha Williams, until January 2019 ( CEO )
Number of employees 22,581 (2014)
sales 17,090,000,000 US dollars (2014)
Branch energy
Website Pacific Gas and Electric Company

Pacific Gas and Electric Company ( PG&E ) is the largest utility company in the United States and is headquartered in San Francisco , California .

The company is listed on the S&P 500 stock index and the Dow Jones Utility Average . The company was founded in 1905. PG&E mainly supplies the northern part of California with natural gas and electricity . Diablo Canyon is the company's only nuclear power plant. Southern California is supplied by competitor Edison International and its subsidiary Southern California Edison . After the devastating forest fires in California in 2018 , the company finally had to file for bankruptcy in early 2019. The insolvency proceedings ended on July 1, 2020.

Groundwater pollution claim in Hinkley

The company became known beyond the borders of California and the USA as a result of the following incident, initially through sensational reports in the press and TV, later through a very successful documentary film :

The paralegal Erin Brockovich eruierte in persistent investigation that in the 1960s the health of residents of up 1980s Hinkley ( California ) by toxic chromium (VI) was attacked massively in groundwater. The chromium (VI) was discharged into the groundwater from a nearby facility owned by the company . In 1996, PG&E was sentenced to pay the largest amount of damages in US history to date, $ 333 million, based on investigations by Erin Brockovich and Ed Masry . Of this sum, the law firm Masry & Vititoe received 40%, the remainder was divided among the more than 600 residents of Hinkley at the time.

"Camp Fire" - forest fire and impending bankruptcy

Obsolete power grid infrastructure in San Francisco

In January 2019, it became apparent that the company would have to apply for bankruptcy protection. This is commonly regarded as a preliminary stage to bankruptcy under American bankruptcy law ( Chapter 11 ). The background is the alleged liability of the company for the Camp Fire , which could exceed the company's own funds many times over, estimates are around 30 billion US dollars. An investigative report from the California Forestry and Fire Protection Agency (CAL Fire) confirmed the belief that PG&E power lines were defective as the cause of the fire.

See also

Web links

Commons : Pacific Gas and Electric Company  - Collection of Pictures, Videos, and Audio Files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b 2014 Form 10-K Report , at www.investor.pgecorp.com , accessed on October 3, 2015
  2. ↑ Claims for damages: forest fires drive the largest American utility into bankruptcy , faz-online from January 14, 2019
  3. ^ PG&E, Troubled California Utility, Emerges From Bankruptcy . July 1, 2020. 
  4. ↑ Bloomberg announcement , accessed January 14, 2019
  5. ↑ It was the power lines , accessed on May 16, 2019