58.9 F
San Diego
Tuesday, Mar 19, 2024
-Advertisement-

SDG & E;, Other Providers Scouring County to Meet Future Electricity Demands

BY BRUCE KAUFFMAN

Like politics and poker, a winning hand is hard to come by in meeting the region’s need for electricity in the years ahead. San Diego Gas & Electric Co. and other independent power operators have been forced to scour far and wide to find new sources, as demand for electricity continues to grow.

Susanne Garfield-Jones, a spokeswoman for the state Energy Commission, said, “The San Diego region is challenged with transmission problems. (It’s) an area we’ve said needs electricity.”

For example, SDG & E; is considering the purchase of a power plant in southern Nevada from Sempra Energy, its corporate parent, to boost generating capacity.

Chief Operating Officer Mike Niggli said the utility has an option to buy a 480-megawatt Eldorado power plant in Boulder City on the Colorado River for $180 million, which is well below market for plants of that size and capacity.

SDG & E; has been eyeing the plant for the past seven years, which became available to other utilities when Sempra settled a dispute with the state attorney general’s office.

But the focus for now is in Chula Vista, where a proposed San Diego Bay front plant of interest to an entertainment company, as well as the San Diego Chargers, is also of interest to operators. The land is owned by the San Diego Port Commission.

Last September, the state Energy Commission began reviewing a proposal from LS Power South Bay, which leases the 700-megawatt Chula Vista plant, to replace it with a smaller 620-megawatt facility (newer technology allows for far smaller and less intrusive plants), freeing up 100 acres for other uses, such as professional football.

With the requisite approvals, the plant could be up and running in 2010.

However, city leaders oppose it. “The city of Chula Vista does not want a power plant on its bay front, old or new,” said Garfield-Jones.


Searching For Power

Meanwhile, SDG & E; is looking east for added sources of power.

To import electricity from desert generating plants, the utility has proposed construction of a 150-mile-long, high-voltage transmission line into San Diego from El Centro.

The so-called Sunrise Powerlink project has generated no small amount of controversy because it would cross the fragile Anza-Borrego Desert State Park. It would be constructed in 2010, if it meets all approvals.

When SDG & E; announced the plans for the line at the end of a particularly tough couple of weeks for power supply in August 2005, it pegged the cost at $1.3 billion.

Niggli said the power line is “the piece that’s important” to the utility’s plans for supplying energy to meet future needs. But opponents say the link is unneeded, and that power can be found closer to home without the need of a transmission line dominating the landscape.

Nevertheless, Niggli said the region stands to lose more than 2,000 megawatts within four years as contracts with third-party providers terminate. He said a transmission line across the desert offers the most power at the lowest price for the most customers.

According to the state Energy Commission, the 2,000 megawatts represent about half of the 4,400 megawatts consumed at peak periods in the summer of 2004, the last year for which the commission collected data in San Diego.

Demand is growing by 100 megawatts a year, said the utility.

Currently, plants operating in the region could generate up to 5,300 megawatts at peak periods. A megawatt is the amount of electricity required to supply 750 homes.

Some relief has already arrived for the utility.

In April, the Palomar Power Project, owned by SDG & E;, came on line with a 550-megawatt output on 20 acres in an industrial park in Escondido.

And, aside from that plant and sister plants in Carlsbad and Chula Vista, three other plants are available to crank out electricity in the county.

These include the Escondido CalPeak, which generates 50 megawatts and the CalPeak border plant, which also generates 50 megawatts. Both are peaker plants that provide power during peak periods of energy use.

SDG & E; also owns 20 percent of the 2,200-megawatt San Onofre nuclear power plant.

Bankrupt Calpine Group, based in San Jose, is constructing a 500-megawatt-plus plant in Otay Mesa, from which SDG & E; has agreed to purchase power when completed in 2009.

Another proposal would place a generating plant at the Marine Corps Air Station Miramar near Santee.

NRG Energy Inc., operator of Carlsbad’s Encina power plant, has joined forces with Enpex, a Del Mar company headed by former Carter administration energy official Richard Hertzberg, to promote the 750-megawatt project, which would be fueled by natural gas.

LS Power has also proposed a plant on this site.

Congress passed a bill to allow the Navy to hand over 60 acres for any power plant sited on the facility.

NRG said it aims to accrue hard-earned air-emission credits by shutting down Encina and then transferring those credits to the Miramar project.

Elected officials oppose the plan because it is too close to the city and citizens say they don’t like the idea of an electric power plant in their back yard.

Nevertheless, NRG’s plans to replace its Encina plant with a smaller one that would produce 300 megawatts have brought solace to residents in Carlsbad.

Shutting Encina would free 20 acres of valuable ocean front property that could be used for other purposes.

In addition, the new plant profile would be lower, a contrast from the soaring stack and monolithic gray fa & #231;ade of the existing 950-megawatt facility.

“It will be almost invisible,” said Steve Hoffman, NRG’s Western region president, adding that the oil tanks would be dismantled because fuel oil would no longer be needed for backup.

There is much talk in Carlsbad about a resort hotel going in if the old plant comes down, he said, but added, “We’re not in the real estate business, but we are in the shareholder value business.”


Bruce Kauffman is a freelance writer in Oceanside.

-Advertisement-

Featured Articles

-Advertisement-
-Advertisement-

Related Articles

-Advertisement-
-Advertisement-
-Advertisement-