Carmel Valley Concerned Citizens

Spinrise

Spinrise

By Don Bauder | Published Wednesday, July 30, 2008

http://www.sandiegoreader.com/news/2008/jul/30/spinrise/

The campaign to ballyhoo the proposed Sunrise Powerlink has one beneficial effect: it is shining light on how San Diego's overlords try to use misinformation to manipulate public opinion.

San Diego Gas & Electric and its parent, Sempra Energy, want to build the 150-mile transmission line to bring, purportedly, solar power from Imperial Valley at a projected cost of $1.5 billion, which is probably grossly understated. Critics point out that the line would slash its way through Anza-Borrego Desert State Park, Grapevine Canyon, Santa Ysabel Canyon, and Rancho Peñasquitos, ending in Torrey Hills..

Crucial Sunrise Powerlink Public Hearing 2/25/08

I am urging you to attend a crucial Sunrise Powerlink Public Hearing to speak out against this ill-conceived project and protect Anza Borrego Desert State Park, YOUR homes and the Los Penasquitos Preserve from its impacts. This may well be your last chance to make an impact upon this very important decision. The meeting will be on:
Monday, February 25^th at 1:30
Board of Supervisors Chamber
San Diego County Administration Center

1600 Pacific Highway
San Diego, CA 92101

Ranchita Rocks

Don't miss an exciting fundraising event to help save Anza-Borrego Desert State Park, local communites and pristine wilderness from SDG&E's Sunrise Powerlink:
THE RANCHITA ROCKS MUSIC AND CRAFT FESTIVAL
Sept 28, 29 & 30th!

CPUC Public Participation Hearing Statement

My name is Laura Copic and I am a member of the Carmel Valley Community Planning Board which has sent a letter of opposition to the CPUC regarding the Sunrise Powerlink (SPL), as have many other planning groups and citizen’s groups in the City and County. With that in mind, I wanted to clarify that, even though Mayor Sanders purports to speak on behalf of the City of San Diego in his letter of support for this project, the San Diego City Council has had no public hearings and has taken no official position on this project to date and his letter clearly does not represent many of us in the City.

I am also a member of Carmel Valley Concerned Citizens which in turn is a member of Communities United for Sensible Power both of which oppose this project. I am an MBA who has devoted much personal time and effort to researching this project because it appeared to me to be an antiquated and unenlightened approach to addressing our future power needs given what we know about the inefficiencies and negative impacts of remote generation and long transmission lines.

Powerlink plans moving too fast

By: Laura Copic - Commentary in the North County Times 9/17/06

I attended the California Public Utilities Commission's pre-hearing conference in Ramona for SDG&E's Sunrise Powerlink and waited four hours to speak for a limited one minute on behalf of the Carmel Valley Community Planning Board and the 35,000 residents it represents in opposition to SDG&E's antiquated and unenlightened approach to solving our future power needs. In all fairness to the CPUC commissioners, this was because there were so many people who wanted to speak out and, thankfully, Supervisor Diane Jacob took the time to express the informed concerns of many of us.

Our reasons for opposing the Sunrise Powerlink are twofold. First, this "transmission first" strategy appears to be in contradiction to the Energy Action Plan and the San Diego Regional Energy Strategy 2030, which stress energy efficiency, reducing demand, producing power in-county and renewables before transmission as preferred strategies to attaining our future energy needs. Second, this transmission line would be a visible, audible blight upon our state park and local preserves as well as a fire and health hazard to nearby residents.

Renewable power and state's energy needs

Dan McSwain helped shed some light on a question that the SANDAG Energy Working Group was struggling with at its Aug. 24 meeting and will continue to address at its Sept. 28 meeting. At last month's meeting, local politicians and other interested parties (including competing power companies) were trying to understand why they should vote in favor SDG&E's Sunrise Powerlink transmission line when the San Diego Regional Energy Strategy (which the SANDAG working group is tasked with implementing) emphasizes in-county and renewable energy resources as the most efficient and effective way of addressing our future energy needs.

McSwain argues that the next power crisis looms closer because energy firms aren't building enough power plants in Southern California. Adding to this problem, the Sunrise Powerlink proposal would allow SDG&E to avoid using or supporting energy sources that are already available from their competition in San Diego County. While praising SDG&E for building a plant in Escondido, McSwain, however, forgets to mention that Sempra (SDG&E's parent company) was allegedly one of the first energy suppliers who “learned to strategically turn off their generators, forcing buyers to pay high federal price caps in the first power crisis.”

I agree that local generation is a more efficient, less expensive power solution that could better add reliability and renewables to our energy mix. In addition, such a solution would have fewer harmful impacts on our parks, preserves and communities. Approving the transmission line, however, may well squelch the momentum and incentive to pursue these superior local alternatives.

Citing a flawed energy policy, McSwain has made it clear that the regulatory and business incentives at play make it less risky and financially much more rewarding for SDG&E to try to secure this power line instead of further supporting in-county generation. Nonetheless, what still remains unclear is why certain regulators and politicians were so quick to support the transmission line even though it is clear that we need more local power plants first, as suggested in their own San Diego Regional Energy Strategy. Perhaps there are financial incentives at play there as well?

LAURA COPIC
San Diego

The Next Power Crisis

Energy industry paralyzed as Sacramento politicians ignore consumers

By Dan McSwain
September 3, 2006

Perhaps nobody was happier than Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger after California sweated through the July heat wave, its worst in 57 years, with no major blackouts. The governor is an expert in how angry people get when officials shut off their air conditioning – he was elected when voters punished former Gov. Gray Davis for bungling the 2000-01 power crisis. But if Schwarzenegger manages to keep his job in November, he may have enjoyed his last celebration over the state of the electricity system.

California is drifting toward a second power crisis that could send blackouts rolling across the southern half of the state as soon as next summer. That's the alarming consensus of economists, energy executives, utility managers and state officials.

The problem is deceptively simple: Energy firms aren't building enough power plants, particularly in Southern California. Demand for electricity is growing, as people snap up new air-conditioned homes in hot inland valleys. But construction of generators, which takes years, is barely keeping pace. What's more, a third of the state's power supply comes from an aging fleet of generators nearing retirement.

Solar cells change electricity distribution

SDG&E's main argument against the alternative of rooftop solar is that because of cost and silicon shortage PV manufacturing and installation capabilities are insufficient to ramp up to an appropriate level of market penetration by 2010. This article from the Seattle Post-Intelligencer debunks that myth.

Thursday, August 10, 2006

Solar cells change electricity distribution

By DAVE FREEMAN AND JIM HARDING
GUEST COLUMNISTS
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER

In separate announcements over the past few months, researchers at the University of Johannesburg and at Nanosolar, a private company in Palo Alto, have announced major breakthroughs in reducing the cost of solar electric cells. While trade journals are abuzz with the news, analysis of the potential implications has been sparse.

We approach this news as current and former public electric utility executives, sympathetic with consumer and environmental concerns. South Africa and California technologies rely on the same alloy -- called CIGS (for copper-indium-gallium-selenide) -- deposited in an extremely thin layer on a flexible surface. Both companies claim that the technology reduces solar cell production costs by a factor of 4-5. That would bring the cost to or below that of delivered electricity in a large fraction of the world.

Utility Financial Imperatives Become Efficiency's Achilles' Heel

The attached article illustrates how California utilities pursuit of additions to their infrastructure ratebase might be undercutting their committment to energy efficiency. The researchers quoted suggest changes to the CPUC's infrastructure ratebasing policies.

Since the CPUC decoupled energy sales from Investor Owned Utility (IOU) shareholder earnings, the primary way a utility can increase its profits is to either build or purchase new IOU owned infrastructure projects like powerplants or transmission lines.

The existing CPUC infrastructure ratebasing policies appear to provide utilities like SDG&E a strong financial incentive to pursue new utility-owned infrastructure projects like the proposed Sunrise Powerlink, instead of purchasing power from plants built by other entities like the proposed repowering of the existing Encina and South Bay powerplants here in San Diego.

Sempra under scrutiny in gas pricing case

By Craig D. Rose
STAFF WRITER
San Diego Union Tribune

August 10, 2006

Sempra Energy and more than two dozen other energy companies may soon be ordered to provide tapes of natural gas trades they executed during the energy crisis of 2000-01, in another case in which plaintiffs allege the companies manipulated commodity prices during the crisis.