SDG&E: Power line would avoid wilderness

By: DAVE DOWNEY - Staff Writer | Thursday, June 28, 2007 12:17 AM PDT ∞

NORTH COUNTY -- The region's electric utility says that it has figured out a way to string a 500-kilovolt power line across Anza-Borrego Desert State Park without encroaching on the wilderness.

San Diego Gas & Electric Co. is proposing to build a $1.3 billion transmission line that would run 150 miles from El Centro to San Diego, passing through the park, Ramona and Rancho Penasquitos. The California Public Utilities Commission is scheduled to decide in January whether to grant permission to build the line.

The utility already moves power through the park via 69-kilovolt wires strung from wooden poles within a 100-foot-wide easement it has had for decades. In submitting a plan for its Sunrise Powerlink project last year, the company proposed expanding that path to 150 feet in width to make room for huge 150-foot-tall metal towers.

The proposed expansion triggered an uproar among environmental groups and Anza-Borrego supporters because it would mean eliminating 73 acres of wilderness area in the park, something California state park system officials said was unprecedented.

In a meeting Wednesday with the North County Times editorial board, Debra Reed, San Diego Gas & Electric president, said the utility intends to stay within its easement by stringing the wires instead from 99-foot-tall, 80-foot-wide towers composed of two poles connected by a cross arm. She said the "H-frame" structures would enable the utility to avoid cutting through wilderness.

Reed also reiterated the company's position that the transmission line, if built, would enable the utility to boost the region's electricity supply, bring in nonfossil-fuel power and ensure that air conditioners will keep humming on the hottest days even if a power line or plant is knocked out. Those objectives have been voiced repeatedly by company officials at meetings around San Diego County.

Reed added another goal to the list Wednesday -- to help the state slash greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels by 2020. Many scientists believe that gases such as carbon dioxide, produced by the burning of fossil fuels, are creating a thick blanket in the atmosphere that is warming the planet.

The power line has many opponents who dispute the claims about its benefits, and a consumer group concluded after studying the project extensively that it is not needed. Environmental groups and residents living along the proposed path say the project will harm wildlife, ruin scenic views in the state park and elsewhere, and drag down property values in neighborhoods.

The project has widespread support in the business community.

Opponents and proponents alike will get the opportunity to outline their reasons for rejecting or approving the power line in California Public Utilities Commission hearings in San Diego, beginning on July 9.

When it comes to nonfossil-fuel power, the utility has just 90 megawatts at the moment, Reed said. She said the region will need an additional 910 megawatts -- or a total of 1,000 megawatts -- by 2010. That's because a state mandate requires the state's major utilities to secure 20 percent of their electricity by then from nonfossil-fuel sources, such as solar, wind and geothermal energy.

The region's supply is approximately 5,000 megawatts. A megawatt is the standard measuring unit for electricity and is generally what is required to keep the lights on in 750 homes, although on hotter days, much more power is required.

The Sunrise Powerlink's path would put wires near the Salton Sea, where several solar and geothermal plants have been proposed. One is Stirling Energy Systems' huge solar plant that could produce 300 megawatts initially, and eventually up to 900. The plant would rely on technology that has yet to be proven commercially.

Critics charge that the utility's plan to bring in nonfossil-fuel, or renewable, power is largely dependent on the Stirling project's success and will collapse if the project fails.

Not so, said Mike Niggli, chief operating officer for Sempra Energy's utilities, which include San Diego Gas & Electric and Southern California Gas Co. If Stirling fails, he said, there would be plenty of other opportunities to move renewable power from the desert to San Diego County over the Sunrise line.

"Whoever fails, it isn't going to matter at the end of the day," Niggli said.

Niggli said San Diego Gas & Electric is reviewing proposals from a variety of entrepreneurs to build renewable-power projects.

On another matter, Niggli said there is a good chance the utility will exercise an option to buy a 480-megawatt power plant in Nevada known as El Dorado to boost supplies. During the spring, San Diego Gas & Electric invited local entrepreneurs to submit alternative proposals.

"It is going to be very hard for anybody to beat that option," he said.

-- Contact staff writer Dave Downey at (760) 740-5442 or ddowney@nctimes.com.

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