A different energy future envisioned

By Dave Downey - Staff Writer
North County Times June 30, 2007

NORTH COUNTY ---- In sharp disagreement with local power officials, a San Diego consumer group fighting the construction of a giant power line through the county says it is not the right time to build such a line because the energy industry is undergoing a transition to self-produced power, negating the need for San Diego Gas & Electric Co.'s Sunrise Powerlink project.

In a recent interview and editorial board meeting with the North County Times, Michael Shames, executive director of the Utility Consumers' Action Network, said it would be a mistake to build the transmission line because, in the future, San Diego County residents won't need the utility to provide them electricity.

"The exact opposite is occurring in the energy industry," Shames said. "People will be producing their own power, as opposed to relying on the paradigm of the last 100 years."

San Diego Gas & Electric officials maintain that the region needs another major power line ---- in addition to an existing one on the coast and another along Interstate 8 ---- to keep air conditioners humming on hot days. Officials with the utility company also say the Sunrise line will bring in more renewable power in the future. The San Diego region has fewer transmission lines than other metropolitan areas, according to energy officials.

But Shames said that instead of a future characterized by mammoth power plants and lines, the region is moving toward a world where the electricity a person uses is generated on his or her roof, or by the solar panel on the neighborhood store down the street.

While San Diego Gas & Electric officials acknowledge that trend, they contend it will occur slowly and that significant quantities of new electricity supplies will be needed from traditional sources such as major transmission lines.

With the goals of boosting the reliability of San Diego County's power supply and bringing in power from nonfossil-fuel sources such as solar, wind and geothermal energy, the utility is proposing to build the Sunrise Powerlink, a 150-mile transmission line.

The $1.3 billion, 500-kilovolt superhighway of electricity would run from El Centro to San Diego, crossing Anza-Borrego Desert State Park, Santa Ysabel, Ramona and Rancho Penasquitos. In some areas, wires would be strung from metal towers ranging from 99 to 150 feet tall. In others, wires would be buried.

The project is supported by many in the business community. It is sharply opposed by environmentalists and residents of the communities the wires would cross, as well as the San Diego-based Utility Consumers' Action Network.

Hearings on the pros and cons of the power line are scheduled in San Diego later this month. The California Public Utilities Commission, a regulatory agency, is expected to decide in January whether to grant permission to build the project.

No value in 20 years

No one knows how fast the region's consumers will move to self-produced power, known in industry circles as "distributed generation," Shames said.

But Shames said it is widely believed that the influence of locally generated rooftop power will be far greater 20 years from now than its token presence today. And he said the amount generated from such sources could easily match the projected 1,000-megawatt output of Sunrise.

"Those lines, rather than having more value in 20 years, will have no value," Shames said.

A megawatt is the standard measuring unit for electricity. The utility's customers in San Diego County and southern Orange County use up to 4,500 megawatts on a scorching summer day.

Today, the region has the ability to draw 66 megawatts ---- 1.3 percent of its 5,000-megawatt supply ---- from rooftop solar panels, according to San Diego Gas & Electric. And the utility estimates that the number will more than triple, to 225 megawatts, or 4 percent of the 5,600-megawatt supply anticipated in 2015.

In disagreement with Shames, San Diego Gas & Electric officials maintained in an editorial board meeting last week that the Sunrise line would have enormous value 20 years from now, regardless of what happens with the solar panels.

Debra Reed, San Diego Gas & Electric's president, said the region needs another major power line to fulfill the region's needs, especially during peak times.

The company also maintains that Sunrise would help San Diego County comply with a state mandate to secure 20 percent of its supply from more environmentally friendly sources of energy that don't entail burning fossil fuels. The utility has said it intends to use the line to plug into solar and geothermal power plants entrepreneurs want to build in the vicinity of the Salton Sea.

When it comes to transmission lines, Reed said San Diego County has fewer than metropolitan areas of similar size. Phoenix, for example, has half a dozen, she said.

At the same time, there are no guarantees rooftop power will saturate the local market, said Mike Niggli, chief operating officer for Sempra Energy's utilities. Sempra owns San Diego Gas & Electric and Southern California Gas Co.

Niggli said he still remembers how in the early 1970s, enthusiastic idealists proclaimed that solar panels would sweep the country. Thirty-five years later, their use has increased only gradually.

San Diego Gas & Electric maintains that 855,000 homeowners would have to install solar panels on their roofs to produce the amount of power Sunrise would deliver.

"Is it worth San Diego's economic future to bet on all those things being there?" Niggli asked.

Scratching the surface

Shames said the utility is correct in suggesting there is little chance that droves of homeowners will opt for solar panels in the near future, particularly with an electric rate structure he says discourages people from investing in panels. But he said the company is missing the point.

"Most of the solar that's going to be installed on rooftops over the next five years won't be on homes, it's going to be on businesses," Shames said. "A lot of companies want the shade factor, so that they can reduce their air-conditioning bills."

Shames said there is more potential in a program to install solar panels on the roofs of factories, stores and government buildings.

Energy analyst Scott Anders, director of the Energy Policy Initiatives Center at the University of San Diego, suggests that rooftop power does indeed have a bright future.

"We are just scratching the surface in terms of distributed generation," Anders said in another editorial board meeting with the North County Times. "This is the beginning of a technology that is going to get better and better and better."

Anders said the region could be on the cusp of a ramping up of rooftop power that could cancel the need for Sunrise Powerlink.

But chances are the idea will take hold gradually, he said.

"As much as I see this future that I am describing, it's not going to happen tomorrow," Anders said.

"It's not going to happen five years from now. It's going to evolve over time," he added. "And it doesn't mean that you don't have more power plants, that you don't have more transmission lines and that you don't have more distribution lines."