LAGUNA NIGUEL, July 16, 2026, 01:26 PDT
A power outage overnight left 22,525 San Diego Gas & Electric customers in South Orange County without electricity. If power comes back by the utility’s 1 a.m. target, that outage would nudge the systemwide outage-duration metric up by only about 3.4 minutes, according to early calculations from reported milestones. The event is enough to show up in annual reliability stats, but seems too small for now to affect near-term earnings at Sempra NYSE:SRE, which owns the utility.
The outage hit 1.45% of the 1.552 million electric meters Sempra listed for its California utility arm as of March 31. That would put it fourth on SDG&E’s 2024 outage chart, between a rainstorm that cut power to 25,992 customers and a vehicle-related incident that affected 21,616.
The timing is key as Sempra is in the middle of a five-year, $65 billion capital plan, putting 95% of that into utilities in California and Texas. CEO Jeffrey Martin said in May the company was keeping the focus on work to “modernize and extend the reach of our utilities.” Reliability results are one way to judge that spend. Sempra
A power outage was reported at 8:48 p.m. Wednesday, impacting areas including Laguna Niguel, Dana Point, south Laguna Beach, San Juan Capistrano, San Clemente, and Capistrano Beach. By 10:45 p.m., about 3,200 customers had their service back, with SDG&E saying it aimed to restore power fully around 1 a.m. The cause of the outage was still unknown.
| Measure | July 15 event | Higher 2024 comparator | Lower 2024 comparator |
|---|---|---|---|
| Peak customer impact | 22,525 | 25,992 from Jan. 22 rainstorm | 21,616 from Oct. 13 vehicle contact |
| Preliminary SAIDI contribution | Up to 3.38 minutes | 5.22 minutes from Jan. 22 rainstorm | 3.26 minutes from Sept. 8 heat |
The ceiling estimate counts every one of the 22,525 accounts as out from 8:48 p.m. to 10:45 p.m. After that, it figures the 19,325 left without power stayed offline through 1 a.m. That gives a total near 5.24 million customer-minutes, split across 1.552 million meters. SAIDI comes out as average outage minutes per customer.
The numbers may overstate the effect since they’re just point-in-time snapshots and don’t track every customer’s actual restoration. At 3.38 minutes, the outage would fall between the 5.22-minute rainstorm loss and the 3.26-minute heat-related event in SDG&E’s 2024 list. It shows up in reliability tables, but doesn’t move group earnings.
SDG&E reports a five-year average SAIDI of 60 minutes per customer. Its 2024 reliability filing shows 71.13 minutes when major-event days and threshold-exceeding outages aren’t counted, and 157.23 minutes with them included. The July outage accounts for 5.6%, 4.8%, and 2.1% of those numbers, in that order.
| Reliability yardstick | Minutes per customer | July outage ceiling as share |
|---|---|---|
| SDG&E five-year avg | About 60 | 5.6% |
| 2024, without major-event days | 71.13 | 4.8% |
| 2024, with major-event days | 157.23 | 2.1% |
By 1:08 a.m., SDG&E’s outage detail list dropped the South Orange County incident from its active unplanned outages. The page then showed only small outages in Oceanside, Rancho Penasquitos and Valley Center, matching the 1 a.m. target. SDG&E did not post the cause or a final restoration time.
Sempra ended Wednesday at $92.78, off 0.6%, with the outage hitting after the close. U.S. markets were shut at the dateline. Trading is set to resume as normal Thursday, with the open lining up as the first major test.
The real risk is what caused it. If it’s just a small localized fault and not expensive to fix, investors may move on quickly. But if it turns out there are repeated equipment problems, a higher repair bill, longer downtime, or safety issues, investors could start to question maintenance and cost recovery. Early Thursday, none of this was confirmed.
