I've never had such unreliable power as I had when I lived in Mountain View (and I've lived in Buffalo, NY and in the hurricane alley in North Carolina). PG&E is a disaster.
It's fascinating to me how santa clara and palo alto are within a few miles and both have reasonable electric utilities with acceptable rates.
Quebec is far far far more rural than any part of California, it just performs maintenance and pruning. And yet?
Lowest rates in Canada/US.
It's all PG&E not performing required, easily done pruning.
Contrast to my neighborhoods in other states where the power wires were buried, and the only times we were without power was when the transmission lines to the entire neighborhood were taken out by weather far more severe than I ever saw in CA.
The vegetation is kept pruned.
Meanwhile, even with Hydro Quebec performing normal maintenance (unlike PG&E), we have the lowest power rates in Canada nad the US. And that's with a far more rural population, compared to SV, which means a lot more pruning per customer served.
The problem is PG&E, not that the lines aren't buried.
What they do do is buy power and sell it to the residents.
Thanks to 1930s laws, they get first claim on the least expensive power sources in California.
Both Santa Clara and Palo Alto "power companies" have also managed to minimize the "hey, there's a large pile of money and if we only raise rates just a bit, think of all the good that we could do."
I mention that because San Jose has started a local "utility" that doesn't have appreciably lower rates than PG&E.
How much does this matter? wholesale power is available to PG&E at 2-4c/kwh.
But if you’re rich enough, you could work around it.