Powerlink decision postponed at least five months

By Christy Scott
The Alpine Sun

     SAN DIEGO — A month-long set of hearings discussing the proposed Sunrise Powerlink has been postponed, after an admission by San Diego Gas & Electric that it made significant errors in estimating the benefits of its powerlink project.
     Steven Weissman, administrative law judge for the Public Utilities Commission, who has been overseeing the hearings, made the call two weeks ago, to postpone all hearings until July 30.
After a telephone conference in late July, Weissman went one step further, indefinitely postponing the remainder of the hearings.
     The hearings, which began at the beginning of July, have featured expert testimony in various categories regarding the powerlink project. They were scheduled to end this week.
     Last month, SDG&E’s grid planning manager Jan Strack testified that he became aware of several significant errors in making the case for the Sunrise Powerlink to the PUC.
     According to SDG&E, mistakes involved misplaced decimal points, as well as other errors regarding the availability of coal-fired power plants in 2020.
     Strack said that the errors made him uncomfortable about the case SDG&E has presented, and called for the “top-to-bottom” review.
     SDG&E representatives said that the utility would correct the errors by the end of last week week, and review the entire economic case this week.
     When first proposed, in 2005, SDG&E estimated an annual energy cost savings of $447 million; that estimate was later lowered to $220 million. The report released by SDG&E, last Friday, drops the savings again, estimating $129 million in annual cost reductions to consumers.
     Michael Niggli, chief operating officer of SDG&E, said that the new estimate doesn’t change the overall benefit of the Sunrise project to the region.
     “The primary reasons we are looking at Sunrise are reliability and renewables,” Niggli said. “It has never been the economic benefits, even though it has twice the benefit of alternatives.”
     The newest numbers also reduce the benefits of all the project alternative routes.
     SDG&E’s preferred Sunrise Powerlink route stretches 150 miles from Imperial County across northern San Diego County, through Anza Borrego State Park, and would cost about $1.3 billion to construct. The towers along the route would be gigantic metal structures, measuring 125 feet high and more than 100 feet wide at their base.
     Other alternative routes that have been identified by the CPUC could plant conduit towers along a path that would skirt Cleveland National Forest land; but travel right through Boulevard, just north of Campo, Potrero, and then north through Descanso and Alpine, where it would be underground.
     The concession last week, of SDG&E errors, also prompted the Division of Ratepayer Advocates, a unit of the California Public Utilities Commission, to call for a dismissal of the case, which could derail the project.
     “This eviscerates their case,” said Joe Como, an attorney with the Division of Ratepayer Advocates. “You might get a witness saying there are small areas requiring change here and there… This time the witness says this upsets the whole apple cart.”
     Weissman deferred ruling on the dismissal motion last week, saying that the question is still on the table.
In another project setback, the draft environmental impact report (EIR) for the project, due to be released this week, will now likely not be completed until early next year.
     California PUC Commissioner Dian Grueneich, who made the announcement, blamed SDG&E for the delay. She said SDG&E held back key information on three issues about Sunrise Powerlink from state and federal officials until as late as a few weeks ago.
     This gave California PUC and U.S. Bureau of Land Management staff too little time to study the environmental impact of the changes, Grueneich wrote in her report.
     SDG&E "continues to delay in responding to environmental staff questions on several key issues," such as rare plant and animal species that would be affected by their proposals, Grueneich wrote.
     "By extending the schedule for the release of the draft EIR, I am necessarily extending the timing of a final Commission decision," Grueneich wrote.
     "In all likelihood, this means that the proposed Sunrise Powerlink, if approved, could not be in service by 2010."
She does not expect the draft of the environmental review documents for the Powerlink to be released until summer 2008.
     The three issues that, Grueneich said, require more study before an EIR can be drafted are:
SDG&E's identifying possible expansion on its preferred route for the Sunrise Powerlink.
Plans for a power substation to connect to wind farm generators.
The claim by SDG&E that it would not meet stringent state requirements to deliver renewable-generated power such as wind and solar without Sunrise Powerlink.
     SDG&E is asking the PUC to reconsider the delay, which would set the project back by at least five months.
     A report by SDG&E released last week says that the utility wants the delay reduced to no more than one month, arguing that to wait any longer would keep the San Diego region from complying with a state mandate to use more renewable power by 2010.

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