REGION: Supporters, opponents clash over power line

SDG&E promises to use wires for green energy, not for coal

By DAVE DOWNEY - Staff Writer | Friday, November 7, 2008 7:00 PM PST ∞

San Diego Gas & Electric Co. officials said Friday that they are willing to be held accountable by state regulators for delivering on their promise to move primarily green power along the proposed $1.7 billion Sunrise Powerlink high-voltage transmission line.

But Debra Reed, president and chief executive officer of SDG&E, said the San Diego-based utility opposes the idea of having to write and seek approval for a "compliance plan" that would require another round of hearings and delay construction of the project.

SDG&E proposed the 500-kilovolt power line nearly three years ago and is hoping the California Public Utilities Commission will approve the controversial project as early as Dec. 4.

At the same time, Reed vowed that the company would not use the line to move power generated by burning coal, a process that emits a huge amount of greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide, that are being blamed for the warming planet.

Reed also said that if the line is approved, the firm will commit to getting one-third of its electricity from green energy sources, such as the sun and wind.

Like the two other major utilities in California, SDG&E is scrambling to comply with a mandate to convert 20 percent of its power from fossil fuels to green, renewable sources by 2010.

As part of California's emerging campaign to curb global warming, there is talk of bumping up that green requirement to 33 percent by 2020.

Reed made the comments at a two-hour commission hearing in San Francisco to discuss a pair of recommendations for the proposed 150-mile power line that SDG&E wants to string through Anza-Borrego Desert State Park, Santa Ysabel, Ramona and Rancho Penasquitos.

In one recommendation, called a proposed decision, an administrative law judge suggested commissioners kill the project.

In the other recommendation, dubbed an alternate decision, one of the five commissioners suggested rejecting SDG&E's favored route through North County and authorizing instead a southern route along the Interstate 8 corridor, with conditions.

Those conditions included the suggested compliance plan that would aim to keep the utility honest about its intentions.

While SDG&E has said repeatedly that it needs the line to meet the state green energy mandate, opponents have expressed much doubt about that.

"SDG&E's argument is, in essence, 'If we build it, they will come,' " said Michael Shames, executive director of the Utility Consumers' Action Network of San Diego, an advocacy group that opposes the line in any form.

But if the line is built, there is no guarantee that green power will come over its wires from the desert to SDG&E's customers in San Diego County and southern Orange County, Shames said.

And if history is any indication, he said, the utility may not deliver substantial amounts of green energy.

He said the 500-kilovolt Southwest Powerlink line that runs along the international border was built for the same purpose more than two decades ago but carries little green power today.

Steven Siegel, staff attorney for the Center for Biological Diversity, an environmental group that opposes the project, told commissioners he would prefer to see the line killed outright.

But if commissioners decide to approve the southern route, Siegel urged that conditions be placed upon the project to ensure that sun, wind and geothermal energy will indeed flow through the wires.

Commissioner Dian Grueneich, the member of the five-member body that produced the alternate decision recommending a southern route, has scheduled a hearing for Thursday in San Francisco for supporters and opponents to discuss what kind of conditions should be placed on the project.

Reed, responding to a question from Grueneich, said her company is willing to submit to conditions, just not through the generation of another document that would have to be approved in a separate hearing, something SDG&E believes is unnecessary.

Reed said the project already had been exhaustively reviewed. With more than 11,000 pages, the case is the largest ever for a power line in California, she said.

SDG&E officials took issue with agency findings that the line is not needed until at least 2014 to keep the lights on in San Diego County. The company says it is needed as early as 2010.

Yakout Mansour, president and chief executive officer of the California Independent System Operator, which runs the state's power grid, suggested that debating when the electricity is needed is useless.

The bottom line, Mansour said, is that the project will be needed at some point in the next decade, and projects often are not completed on schedule and so it doesn't hurt to start construction early.

"Keep in mind that this is a project that is supposed to serve the state for 40 or 50 years," he said.

Contact staff writer Dave Downey at (760) 745-6611, ext. 2623, or ddowney@nctimes.com.

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burt wrote on Nov 7, 2008 8:35 PM:San Diego has Sun like other places have Oil. Local Solar is a viable alternative to the Powerlink proposal.

In a recent set of blog responses to the NCT article “Utility Lashes back at opponents”, a number of the Powerlink power transport proponents advised the Local Solar proponents to “do the math”, implying that if they did some simple math it would be clear how untenable their position is to use Local Solar energy instead of piping it in from the desert ( I like the idea of testing new solar technologies, I just don’t want to see us pay for a big extension cord from the desert to San Diego).

So here’s some back of the envelope numbers from my experience with my installation. My system cost about $15,000 for 12 BPSX170 PV panels, a MX-60 MPPT charger/inverter, fixed roof mounts, batteries (since I’m off the grid), breaker panels and boxes, etc. The panels occupy about 18 feet by 12 feet (200 sqft) and are fixed mounts, except on the solar equinoxes I can adjust the tilt to compensate for the seasonal sun altitude angle (I opted to install another panel or two rather than take on the additional expense and complexity to get the 10-15% efficiency gain of solar azimuth tracking devices). I installed the system myself. Peak capacity for this system would be 12*170 Watts, or about 2KW (which never happens), but over the last two years of taking data, I actually averaged about 8-10KWHr per day. So that’s about $15000/10KWHr, or an installed cost of about $1500/KWHr.

Powerlink is projected (think of Sprinter cost overruns) to cost $1.5B. So if we were spend that much to simply replicate my little system using the existing power grid infrastructure, we could produce in the ball park of $1,500,000,000/$1500/KWHr, or about 1000 MWHr per day. So even if I use the mid point of my average power production, Local Solar could produce power within the same order of magnitude (900MW) as the 1000 MW capacity planned for Powerlink!

You could argue that my assumptions might be low on expense (installed myself) or high on power production (more cloudy days), but remember, the $1.5B Powerlink doesn’t actually provide any power; it’s just for the power transmission line!

For Powerlink, there still has to be additional millions or billions spent on the actual desert power plants, plus significant recurring operating expenses. Also remember some other basics about sustainable Local Solar power:

1. It’s not just PV; even simple collectors can produce significant amounts of hot water that can either be used directly or as a preheater for standard water heaters; solar pool heaters are a proven technology (just put your garden hose out in the sun tomorrow for a few hours and feel (carefully!) what comes out when you turn it on).

2. It doesn’t just go on residential roofs, think of all the giant flat areas above office, manufacturing and parking structures (where it reduces the power needed for air conditioning).

3. Local Solar includes anything that generates power from wind or waves, both of which we have as well as emerging technologies to harvest power from them.

4. Yes, petroleum is used in the production of PV, but its return is spread over 20+ years, somewhat longer than gas lasts in my car.

5. Economy of scale would reduce the manufacturing expense of solar PV, provide competition to improve the efficiency and appearance, and generate significant contractor and service business opportunities.

6. We don’t have to shut off existing power generation stations, and supply the entire State. We just use the existing infrastructure and start the process of harvesting Local Solar.

7. Solar on my roof looks much nicer and feels safer than a nuke plant down the street.

8. We don’t have to go to war to get the Sun to shine here, and the Sun isn’t due to run out for an acceptable few million years.

9. Powerlink proponents keep saying solar panels have an excessive homeowner initial investment and long rate of return (SDG&E policy is not without blame in this department). Why assume home owners would have to pay for the solar panels directly? Why not fund sustainable Local Solar from the same place the Powerlink money is coming?

The best news of all for a sustainable Local Solar approach is that it starts solving a problem now that the human race is going to have to solve sometime, and that is learning how to live when oil gets too expensive to burn.

Fear tactics - look at map wrote on Nov 8, 2008 8:25 AM:In SDG&E's attempt to force the public to accept the Sunrise Powerlink, here's my personal latest. I received a huge envelope from SDG&E containing the notice and dire warnings that my power WILL be cut off when winds reach 35 MPH sustained or 55 MPH gusts (approx) I live in the San Marcos, with one of the better fire agencies. There is no open brush for miles, and the map attached makes me sick ! A good percentage of us in cities are going to be subject to this cut-off. The subliminal message is this "We have the power, and we can cut you off at any time - you better opt for the Sunrise Powerlink !!!!!

John wrote on Nov 8, 2008 9:04 AM:Wait a year and construction prices will go down. The economy is so bad - great deals are to be had. That said - power demand will not mushroom in a depressed economy. So we don't really need to push this through too fast. Meanwhile, the sun is shining and money for local solar makes lot more cents.

Huh wrote on Nov 8, 2008 9:18 AM:And we need SDG&E to be a middle man and bring in a mix of green and unclean power from outside the area on an expensive transmission line in spite of the fact that it could be generated locally with solar and wind for less money - because...? With the collapse of the free market at hand - don't expect us middle class slobs to let utilities remain in private hands. I for one am not willing to keep making these fat cat power brokers fatter when there are viable alternatives. Utilities should be publicly owned.

Curious wrote on Nov 8, 2008 9:35 AM:Would SDG&E also pledge not to use the Powerlink to carry electricity produced by its Mexican plant?

Smog that kills - new E I R wrote on Nov 10, 2008 6:16 AM:Why are not MORE hearings slated since the PUC judge opted for ANYTHING other than the original Sunrise Powerlink ? I for one would think that the EIR needs to be done over to consider ALL options, since the northern route is eliminated. Isn't the EIR covered under CEQA - and wouldn't the findings be "Significant New Information" and absolutely require a NEW Environmental Impact Report, especially one that considers the use of the "Hot Gases" that will be burned at power plants and in our homes - the liquified natural gas that is being shipped frozen from the Far East to the Costa Azul terminal in Mexico and thence, without being "scrubbed" ( cleaned of the most dangerous particles), and placed into the natural gas system. New E I R for the Sunrise Powerlink and requirement that the imported LNG be "scrubbed" - if not, we will have smog that really harms our health.

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