San Francisco has launched the “Our City, Our Power” campaign to rally public support for buying PG&E’s local wires and taking over electricity service within the city.

It includes a website asking residents to sign up in favour of the effort, arguing the city can provide better service.

“Local control of the entire San Francisco electric system will provide increased affordability, safety, reliability and accountability,” Mayor London Breed said in a statement on the site.

PG&E, which filed for Chapter 11 last year facing US$30 billion in liabilities from wildfires blamed on its equipment, has already turned down a US$2.5 billion offer from San Francisco to buy the gear, saying it’s worth more.

Allowing communities to buy parts of the system could delay needed investments in California’s ageing electric grid, the company said in an emailed statement Monday.

“While recent proposals for state or municipal ownership of PG&E’s infrastructure are not new concepts, we don’t agree that the outcomes of this type of framework will benefit customers, taxpayers, local communities, the state or our economy,” the company said.

The utility company, founded in San Francisco more than a century ago, has also turned down offers from three other local public agencies in California interested in buying portions of its grid.

As part of a proposed reorganisation plan, PG&E has called for keeping itself intact and setting up regional divisions to address local concerns.

A San Francisco official, meanwhile, has raised the possibility of seizing PG&E’s equipment through eminent domain if the company refuses to sell.