Unit 2 at PG&E's Diablo Canyon Power Plant returns to full power

AVILA BEACH, Calif . – Unit 2 at Pacific Gas and Electric Company's (PG&E) Diablo Canyon Power Plant returned to full power today at 12:11 a.m. following a safe shut down on October 11.

Teams of technical experts completed thorough inspections and repairs to equipment while the unit was offline, ensuring the safe restart of the unit.

"Diablo Canyon's highly trained operators, engineers and maintenance personnel performed in an exceptional fashion in assessing the situation and in making needed repairs to allow the safe return of the unit to service," said Ed Halpin, PG&E's Senior Vice President and Chief Nuclear Officer.

Unit 2 shut down after an electrical disturbance occurred in equipment that monitors the flow of electricity into the state's power grid. The equipment is located on the non-nuclear side of the plant. Unit 2 responded as designed to the electrical disturbance by safely shutting down. Unit 1 was unaffected and continued to produce power.

Diablo Canyon Power Plant is a nuclear power facility owned and operated by PG&E. Its two units together produce approximately 2,300 net megawatts of greenhouse-gas-free electricity, about 10 percent of all electricity generated in California, and enough energy to meet the needs of more than three million Northern and Central Californians.

Pacific Gas and Electric Company, a subsidiary of PG&E Corporation (NYSE:PCG), is one of the largest combined natural gas and electric utilities in the United States. Based in San Francisco, with 20,000 employees, the company delivers some of the nation's cleanest energy to 15 million people in Northern and Central California. For more information, visit http://www.pge.com/about/newsroom/ and www.pgecurrents.com.