Our view: SDG&E's transmission line suffers setbacks, but still has merit

If San Diego Gas & Electric Co.'s financial projections were the sole, or even the best, reason to support the Sunrise Powerlink, we wouldn't support it. But the region needs more power, and specifically, it needs another link to power generation outside the county, including possible renewable energy. What's more, the Sunrise Powerlink remains the best leverage we have to push big, dirty power plants such as Carlsbad's out of business.

Late last month, the utility's Sunrise Powerlink proposal suffered an embarrassing setback. The California Public Utilities Commission suspended a hearing on the controversial 150-mile transmission line after it determined SDG&E's estimates of the line's economic benefits to be inflated. That recalculation lowers the projected annual economic benefits from $204 million to $129 million.

For this correction, we are in the debt of Michael Shames and his team at the Utility Consumers' Action Network, whose diligent research exposed this and other errors in SDG&E's analyses. UCAN deserves credit for doing the hard work necessary to keep this fight honest.

Then last week, another state regulatory agency dealt SDG&E's big transmission proposal another big blow. The California Public Utilities Commission pushed back its timetable for analyzing the project's environmental impacts from this month to January and pushed the final report back to next June.

The delays indirectly undercut another of SDG&E's rationales for the Sunrise Powerlink. The utility has argued it needs the 150-mile transmission line, which would stretch from El Centro through Ramona to Rancho Penasquitos, to meet a 2010 state deadline to boost its share of renewable sources of energy. Specifically, SDG&E hopes to link up with solar and possible geothermal power in Imperial Valley.

All in all, July was a bad month for the utility, and for those of us who believe that the region needs another big transmission line. And yet it still ought to be built, despite and not because of SDG&E's arguments on its behalf.

We still don't buy some of the utility's more dire forecasts of gloom and doom, mainly painted in terms of rolling blackouts and soaring prices, if its transmission line is delayed or even, perhaps, scuttled altogether. There's enough local power generation for the near future, and existing transmission lines can import enough electricity from elsewhere if some local generators go down.

There are probably even easier, less-expensive ways to increase our share of renewable energy than building a 150-mile power line through the Anza-Borrego Desert State Park. The state's 2010 deadline for its renewable mandate is the product of political posturing in Sacramento more than intelligent planning.

But adding another large-capacity transmission line will greatly improve the reliability of this southwestern cul-de-sac of the Western energy grid. It will make us less susceptible to shortages and price gouging if another statewide crisis ever hits. It would offer access to the energy sources being built in Imperial County and parts east, thus decreasing our reliance on local power generation.

The Sunrise Powerlink's potential to tap faraway energy generation should be its strongest argument for much of North County. It will help shutter the obsolete, dirty eyesore called the Encina Power Station in Carlsbad.

Isn't that already happening? It's true that Encina's owners have said that they want to build a so-called "peaker plant" next to the existing facility that would only operate during peak demand. The proposed new plant would be cleaner, more efficient, farther from shore and, at 100 feet, its tallest point would be 300 feet lower than the smokestacks looming over Carlsbad's coastline.

That news is all to the good. Deactivating Encina's older, less-efficient generators, which date to the 1950s and 1970s, will free up prime property and provide us better coastal views and cleaner air. But it's probably happening in part because SDG&E's transmission line project is looming over Cabrillo Power, the subsidiary of NRG Energy Inc., that owns and operates the Carlsbad plant. No power line, and the state could force NRG to keep operating its dirty generators to maintain our power supply.

The Sunrise Powerlink has merit, if not quite the benefits touted by SDG&E. If it is derailed by unfavorable regulatory rulings, it won't be the end of the world. But we continue to support the project, because, among other benefits, the distant generators it will tap should help us squeeze outdated power generation from our shoreline.