California Endures Transmission Challenges
Key to Green Growth
Six California Supreme Court judges were unanimous in their decision to refuse the city of Chino Hills’ petition to review its case against the Tehachapi transmission project, a spokesperson for the Supreme Court told TransmissionHub Dec. 23.
The project, which is being developed by Southern California Edison, has been in a holding pattern in the Chino Hills area since Nov. 10, when the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) ordered the company to halt construction on the segment that runs through Chino Hills.
City officials did not return calls for comment as of press time.
In a statement posted on the city’s web site Dec. 21, Mayor Art Bennett said, “The city is disappointed, but not surprised, that the Supreme Court denied our petition for review of our property rights case relative to the Tehachapi Renewable Transmission Project. The Supreme Court only accepts a small percentage of the cases submitted.”
The city will continue efforts to fully participate in the California Public Utilities Commission (PUC) review of alternate routes in the new year, Bennett said in the statement.
The Supreme Court petition is the most recent development in this ongoing battle.
Chino Hills is contesting the utility’s planned route through a five-mile stretch of Chino Hills, saying the city’s easements are too narrow for the 500-kV line. The city is also opposed to SCE’s planned 200-foot towers and wants the line either rerouted through a state park or placed underground.
CPUC President Michael Peevey said on Nov. 10 that once the new transmission structures were put in place through the residential neighborhood in Chino Hills, the city found them to have a “visual, economic and societal impact…far more significant than what the city or the commission envisioned at the time the [certificate of public convenience and necessity] was issued.”
In a separate action on the same date, Peevey directed Southern California Edison to prepare alternatives for routing that portion of that line segment. The utility is to serve testimony, with supporting data, by Jan. 10.
On Oct. 19, the PUC directed SCE to stop performing any new or additional tower construction and conductor stringing in certain areas due to concerns over possible FAA violations.
The 250-mile Tehachapi project is intended to bring wind-generated electricity from Kern County to the Los Angeles Basin. The $2.1bn project is slated to be completed in 2015 and is part of California’s mandate to obtain 33% of its energy from renewables by 2020.
Carl Dombek, senior editor for Energy Central’s TransmissionHub, where this story first appeared.
Comments
The real stupidity is in California's renewables mandate
Wow! $8.4 million per mile for a transmission line to bring power from an intermittent source with a 30%(+/-) capacity factor. And the people bearing the cost are the same people who were robbed by the federal government to give the wind facility either a production tax credit or a cash-grant-in-lieu. So, to the cost of the wind power facility, we now must add the cost of the transmission line and the impact on property values (another cost to the taxpayer/ratepayer).
California is falling off an economic cliff and continues to pile on the load.
Transmission Litigation Challanges
We see one article after another about Transmission projects stalled in Litigation with Industry entities lamenting the problems and cost that result because of their bad decisions (in the first place) to ignore public comments and consider seriously customer complaints about routing. The simple fact is that new technologies and under grounding transmission lines would improve the system and be acceptable to the Public.
Underground systems would not be affected by storms, fires & terrorist activities and lower cost in the long run. However Utilities refuse to accept them, because if they can't build above ground Lines then the value of their above ground Right of Ways will not be "Used or Useful" and removed from their Rate Base which will reduce their shareholders profits.
Ratepayers need to put enough pressure on Utility Regulators and Elected Officials to demand that the Utilities start under grounding new lines and a portion of all of the remaining above ground facilities each year over a period of say 10 years. Then we will ultimately have an appropriate 21st century Utility system.
Risks for Transmission Construction
The principal risks for nuclear generation transmission construction are regulation and litigation, as they have been throughout the history of the industry in the US.
The potential cost impacts of a rerouting after towers have been constructed and cable has been pulled are massive, as are the costs of the overall project delay.