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SDG&E Plans an East-West Power Line

Posted on: Thursday, 1 September 2005, 09:00 CDT

Sep. 1--San Diego Gas & Electric proposed yesterday to build a major east-west transmission line that it said would ensure regional electric reliability and allow it to tap renewable energy resources.

The new line would extend about 120 miles -- its exact route remains undetermined -- and could carry 1,000 megawatts, enough to power about 650,000 homes, SDG&E said.

The utility said the line, dubbed the Sunrise Powerlink, would be needed by 2010 or 2011 to bolster reliability in a region with growing electricity demand and would be essential for the utility to meet a state goal of deriving 20 percent of its electricity from renewable sources by 2010.

Edwin Guiles, chief executive of SDG&E, said those potential renewable resources lie -- largely to the east of San Diego in the form of geothermal, solar and wind power.

Tapping those green power sources would improve reliability and the environment, he said. In addition, the utility said the power line could reduce costs for ratepayers by providing cheaper electricity from outside the region.

Guiles said the Aug. 25 blackout in Southern California was a "sharp reminder of just how fragile" the state's transmission system is. That 45-minute outage affected about 450,000 customers of SDG&E and Southern California Edison, just to the north.

"If the Sunrise Powerlink had been in service, it would likely have helped avoid last week's transmission emergency," Guiles said.

California's Independent System Operator, which oversees power grid reliability, characterized the event as an isolated episode caused by a single sensor failure.

After failing to win approval for a new north-south power line two years ago following community opposition, SDG&E this time said it had decided only on a general route for the line in order to work out details in consultation with others.

"We want to work with community groups, elected officials, local, state and federal agencies and members of the public in an open and collaborative process," Guiles said.

The utility hopes to file complete plans for the line by the middle of next year with the California Public Utilities Commission. Construction would take two years, Guiles said.

He declined, however, to put a price tag on the new power link. Projects of this scale typically cost hundreds of millions of dollars, with expenses paid by ratepayers of SDG&E and other state utilities.

For comparison, the utility's failed Valley Rainbow interconnect proposal called for a roughly 30-mile power line from North County to areas farther north and had a price tag of $360 million. The PUC in 2003 decided it was too expensive and unnecessary.

Community groups argued that the line would affect sensitive areas and would benefit SDG&E's parent company, Sempra Energy, more than local customers. The opponents said Sempra wanted the link to move power from its power plants in Mexico and Arizona to areas north of San Diego.

A local consumer advocate said he had similar concerns about the latest transmission proposal from SDG&E.

Michael Shames, executive director of the Utility Consumers' Action Network, said consultants hired by his group found that renewables in East County could be tapped by building a power line of more modest capacity and size.

"The real goal of SDG&E's proposal is not so much to bring renewables here as it is to move power from Sempra's plants in Mexico and Arizona to the north," Shames said.

He also said that an existing power line in the region -- which offers one possible route for the new line -- was strung on conventionally sized telephone poles. The proposed new power line would be strung on single-posted towers about 100 feet high.

"The proposal would be the equivalent of putting a freeway where there had once been a hiking trail," he said.

Debate over new transmission lines also involves questions about how best to spend ratepayer money, including whether to invest in links to outside sources of electricity generation or to develop local power sources.

SDG&E is building a new power plant in Escondido and hopes to contract for electricity from a second proposed plant on Otay Mesa.

The utility held a news conference yesterday announcing its proposal at Scripps Memorial Hospital in La Jolla, where it was joined by Chris Van Gorder, chief executive of Scripps Health.

Van Gorder, who said he was there "representing the general business community," said even brief electrical brownouts in the past had disrupted research at Scripps, despite its backup generation resources.

"It is critical for us to have another power link," Van Gorder said.

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Copyright (c) 2005, The San Diego Union-Tribune

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Source: The San Diego Union-Tribune

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