RAMONA —— San Diego Gas & Electric Co. wants to narrow the list of routes for a high-voltage power line it wants to construct between inland North County and Imperial Valley.

The utility giant held the second of a series of public meetings on the power line's siting process at Ramona Elementary School on Wednesday, complete with tacos, gum balls and chocolate bars for participants. The series started Monday in San Diego.

"We're trying to take a step back, to hear the public's concerns before the routing process gets going," said Jim Avery, vice president of electric operations.

In 2002, the state Public Utility Commission shut down a controversial SDG&E proposal for a power link to Riverside County called Valley-Rainbow.

The company's executives say a new power line is necessary to supply enough electricity to San Diego County in coming years and to satisfy state requirements to have 20 percent of the region's power come from renewable sources.

Just under half of the San Diego region's electricity is imported, Avery said. The power line will save millions for the utility and its customers by reducing the need to subsidize older power plants in Carlsbad and Chula Vista when demand is high, he said.

In Ramona on Wednesday, environmentalists and community planners questioned the need for a new high-voltage power line, which must thread the needle between obstacles such as the Cleveland National Forest, Anza-Borrego Desert State Park and several American Indian reservations.

Kelly Fuller, who studies wind energy for the Sierra Club, asked why a cheaper power line from Imperial Valley could not be built in Mexico along existing lines.

Avery replied that electricity still needs to flow north from Mexico, and beefing up connections from South County to the rest of the region would be too expensive.

A Ramona resident argued that SDG&E should encourage residential and commercial customers to install and use solar panels more aggressively.

"There's so much sunshine in Southern California, and we make little use of it," said Carolyn Dorroh, a member of the Ramona Community Planning Group.

SDG&E plans to issue a "request for offers" in the next two months to small solar-power systems, company executives said.

The company is planning to build a new central substation somewhere in a 15-mile-wide oval surrounding both Ramona and Warner Springs.

The utility wants to connect the future substation by a 500-kilovolt power line, called the Sunrise Powerlink, to an existing substation in Imperial County southwest of El Centro. An additional 230-kilovolt line would connect the new facility with an existing substation near Carmel Valley.

Five hundred kilovolts is 4,500 times more than the voltage coming from an ordinary electric socket. The new power line is expected to carry 1,000 megawatts, or enough power for 650,000 SDG&E customers. The company recently signed contracts with an Arizona-based solar energy provider that could eventually bring in up to 900 megawatts.

SDG&E plans to apply to the Public Utility Commission to show the need for the project this winter and propose possible routes in the summer of 2006. Broad route options should be available by the middle of November, Greystone Environmental consultant Kenda Pollio said.

More information is available at www.sdge.com/sunrisepowerlink.

Contact staff writer Quinn Eastman at (760) 740-5412 or qeastman@nctimes.com.