SDG&E, Imperial agree to team up Sunrise line would bring power into S.D. County

By Craig D. Rose
UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER
June 22, 2006

EL CENTRO - San Diego Gas & Electric yesterday reached an agreement to
team with the Imperial Irrigation District to work on the Sunrise
Powerlink, a controversial 120-mile power line to bring power into San Diego
County.

Under terms of an agreement approved by the Imperial utility yesterday,
the irrigation district would oversee construction of the southwest
portion of the transmission line from the heart of its service territory
to the boundary of SDG&E's jurisdiction, near the county line.

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At that point, SDG&E would begin the 120-mile long Sunrise line that is
planned to cross Anza-Borrego Desert State Park and northern San Diego
County. The Imperial Valley utility will allow its partner, Citizens Energy of
Massachusetts, to build the link between the two utilities. Citizens is
headed by former U.S. Rep. Joseph Kennedy II, D-Mass.

“By sharing our efforts, our customers benefit, San Diego benefits and
indeed, customers across the state will benefit,” said Andy Horne,
president of the Imperial board.

In addition to Horne, Imperial board members John Pierre Menvielle,
Stella Mendoza and Rudy Maldonado voted to approve the agreement and
expressed support for the project.

Kennedy said the nation had waited a long time to learn how to get
Imperial County's renewable resources to markets. Experts generally believe the region's hot, sunny climate will allow it to develop significantly
more solar and geothermal electric generating projects, which are
increasingly prized for their lack of pollution and their renewable nature.

“This is the first dedicated green path project,” Kennedy said.

Parties to the memo approved yesterday noted that further details need
to be resolved before a definitive partnership is sealed. Review of the
Sunrise Powerlink proposal by the California Public Utilities
Commission is expected to take at least one year.

Imperial, which serves about 130,000 customers, is growing by about
1,000 customers monthly.

The link with the Sunrise Powerlink is just one component of what
Imperial calls the Green Path transmission project, which also includes a
link to the Los Angeles Department of Water & Power that will travel
north of San Diego County.

Critics of Sunrise - including community groups that have formed around
the proposed path of the line in North County - say it is unnecessary,
too expensive and not needed to tap renewable energy resources in
Imperial County.

Before beginning the negotiations that led to yesterday's agreement,
the Imperial district had characterized its Green Path proposal as a
competitor to the Sunrise Powerlink, with both seeking to tap the Imperial
Valley's renewable energy potential.

Kennedy said Citizens Energy remains committed to returning 50 percent
of its earnings from the transmission project to low-income assistance
in Imperial County, which is the poorest in California.

In response to a question, he said the annual amount should run into
the “millions, not tens of millions (of dollars).”

There appeared to be little public participation at the afternoon
session at which the agreement was approved. There were about 30 people in attendance - mainly officials of the various entities involved - and
just two people responded to an opportunity for the public to comment.

Both criticized the board for inadequately publicizing yesterday's
session, saying they learned of it just two days before it was held.

Horne called the criticism “ludicrous,” asserting that the Imperial
Irrigation District had spent months educating the public about the
transmission project.

Malissa Hathaway McKeith, an attorney with Citizens United for
Resources and the Environment who was one of the two speakers, criticized the notion that the project would primarily tap renewable energy sources.

“The idea that this is being built as green path is untrue,” McKeith
said. “It will be an impetus for more (electricity) generation
development in Mexicali.”

She and other critics of the Sunrise Powerlink contend the primary
purpose of the new power line is to move electricity from a Mexicali plant
owned by Sempra Energy - SDG&E's parent company - to California's
energy markets.

Power plants in Mexico don't fully comply with U.S. air quality
regulations and contribute to pollution in Imperial County.

Kennedy and James Avery, an SDG&E senior vice president who is
overseeing the Sunrise project, said they hoped to keep power generated by polluting plants off the new power line by filling it with power from
renewable projects.

Avery said it was impossible to guarantee the line would carry only
renewable energy. However, he said the utility had contracted for enough
power to fill more than half the line's capacity, which is about 1,000
megawatts. The bulk of the renewable power would come from Stirling
Energy Systems, a Phoenix company.

Stirling is developing a technology that concentrates solar heat to
generate steam that drives turbines, an approach that has never been used commercially.

Kelly Fuller, who is leading opposition to the Sunrise Powerlink for
the Sierra Club, said there is growing skepticism that Stirling's
technology could be running at levels sufficient to justify the new power line by 2010, when SDG&E hopes to have the line operational.

“There is great potential for renewable energy in Imperial Valley,”
Fuller said. “The question is when they will be ready and if they're not,
what will be transported across the new transmission line.”