SAN FRANCISCO–The California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) issued a $400,000 citation to Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E) for violations related to the failure of a transmission tower north of the Moss Landing substation on Oct. 18, 2015.

PG&E placed into operation a new 230 kilovolt (kV) transmission tower on October 11, 2015. It failed seven days later, causing an outage that impacted approximately 55,000 customers in the Monterey area.

An investigation by the CPUC’s Safety and Enforcement Division found that PG&E used an incorrect angle in building all four concrete footings of the tower, which resulted in a low safety factor and caused the tower to fail and fall to the ground.  PG&E was found to violate two provisions in General Order (GO) 95:  Rule 31.1 for installing the tower improperly, and Rule 44.1 for constructing and operating the tower with an unacceptable safety factor.

PG&E has 30 calendar days to pay or contest the Citation imposed by the CPUC’s Safety and Enforcement Division.