[pct-l] Sunrise Power Project

[Donna Saufley]

The article doesn't say whether the alternative route that was approved also
crosses the PCT; the trail is not mentioned at all.   It does sound as
though it will cross the trail as the route roughly parallels the US/Mexico
border.   

 

www.latimes.com/business/printedition/la-fi-sunrise19-2008dec19,0,7158534.st
ory

 

ENERGY

State PUC approves $1.9-billion Sunrise Powerlink

The ratepayer-funded electrical transmission project aims to boost the use
of clean sources.

By Marc Lifsher December 19, 2008 

 

Reporting from Sacramento -- Regulators gave a San Diego utility the
go-ahead Thursday to build a $1.9-billion transmission line that it says is
needed to move nonpolluting geothermal, wind and solar power from inland
deserts to energy-hungry coastal cities.

The California Public Utilities Commission, meeting in San Francisco, voted
4-1 to approve a proposed decision by President Michael Peevey to allow San
Diego Gas & Electric Co. to use ratepayer funds to string 123 miles of new
high-voltage lines. Massive steel towers would carry the electricity from
Imperial County through environmentally sensitive areas of the San Diego
County backcountry and the Cleveland National Forest.

The commission's lone dissenter, Dian Grueneich, couldn't persuade her
colleagues to support an alternative decision. It would have authorized the
line, known as the Sunrise Powerlink, but only if SDG&E, a unit of San
Diego-based Sempra Energy, complied with strict requirements that it be
filled with electrons from "green" sources.

Once operational, the line will play "a critical role in California's
efforts to achieve energy independence" and help the state meet its goal to
generate a third of its power from non-fossil-fuel sources by 2020, Gov.
Arnold Schwarzenegger said.

Developers, who want to invest millions of dollars in power plants to
generate alternative energy, say they won't be able to secure financing
without a commitment from the state that the line will be available to carry
their electricity to market.

The Sunrise plan, which has been before the commission for three years, has
solid backing from state, local and ethnic chambers of commerce, many San
Diego County governments and labor unions. But it has garnered equally
strong opposition from environmental groups, consumer advocates and rural
communities that lie along the line's path, roughly paralleling the
U.S.-Mexico border.

Opponents, who denounce Sunrise as too costly and unneeded, vow to file
lawsuits challenging the Public Utility Commission's decision.

"The commissioners issued a $2-billion, politically driven decision today
that disregarded the facts," said Michael Shames, executive director of the
Utility Consumers Action Network. "It will be up to the appellate courts to
force the PUC to face the facts that make the Sunrise project a whopping
Christmas present for Sempra but a lump of coal for all of the state's
ratepayers."

Other Sunrise foes said the commission's decision could have been worse for
the environment if SDG&E's initial power line route had been approved. The
utility originally wanted to run the line through Anza-Borrego Desert State
Park, a vast preserve that spans portions of Riverside, San Diego and
Imperial counties, considered a jewel of the California system.

In the face of criticism from the Sierra Club and the California Parks
Foundation, SDG&E recently dropped the Anza-Borrego route and embraced a
more costly path farther south.

In October, the utility came out on the losing end of an administrative law
judge's proposed decision that the line wasn't needed to satisfy San Diego
County's short-term power requirements.

Commissioner Grueneich, a veteran environmental activist, offered SDG&E a
compromise: The company could build on the southern route if it could
provide the PUC with a firm, legal commitment that the line's 1,000
megawatts of capacity would be filled completely with energy from renewable,
nonpolluting sources.

Grueneich said she feared that the company would use Sunrise to carry
electricity produced by coal or natural-gas-fired power plants in other
states or nearby Baja California, Mexico.

Both SDG&E and Peevey, who authored his own, ultimately successful proposed
decision, countered that Grueneich's conditions could prove too burdensome
to the utility and its alternative energy suppliers.

The commission, Peevey said, would monitor SDG&E to make sure it lives up to
a nonbinding promise to send no coal-based electricity through the Sunrise
line. The company also said it would meet the state's 33% alternative energy
goal by the 2020 deadline.

"I fully expect the company to follow through on its commitments," Peevey
said.

But SDG&E's word wasn't good enough for Grueneich.

"We have an obligation to ensure that San Diego Gas & Electric's ratepayers
and not just its shareholders see a return on their investment," she said.

"I am not willing to risk $2 billion in ratepayer money to the invisible
hand of the market."

 <mailto:marc.lifsher at latimes.com> marc.lifsher at latimes.com