The Energy Policy Act of 2005 gave the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) the authority to override state and local opposition to the construction of interstate transmission lines if the agency determines that they will reduce system congestion. In April, the Department of Energy designated two regions that might qualify for such treatment as "national interest electric transmission corridors." One covers a broad territory stretching from Maryland to New York and as far west as Ohio. The other includes a large chunk of southern California, southern Nevada (including Las Vegas), and parts of Arizona all the way to Phoenix.
In announcing FERC's plan, Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman said, "The parochial interests that shaped energy policy in the 20th century will no longer work." Maybe so, but instead of serving the "national interest," the proposed corridors are looking a lot like poaching routes. Their result will be to enable regions that have resisted building generation locally—in hopes of buying cheaper power from other regions—to avoid paying the full costs of "their" power. The problem with this plan is that it saddles generating regions with the environmental and lost resources costs and consequences.
California dreamin'
The Sunrise Powerlink is probably the most ambitious project developed by San Diego Gas ' Electric (SDG'E) in many years. The project contemplates running a new 150-mile transmission line east from San Diego into the deserts and then south to an Imperial Valley substation near the U.S.-Mexico border. SDG'E claims the link will spur development of renewables (geothermal and solar), lower transmission system congestion costs, and "reduce subsidies paid to local, aging power plants that are more expensive to operate."
The second and third issues are closely related. In the reports backing its national corridor designations, the DOE states that one of the biggest reasons it considers the southern California grid "troubled" is the high cost of running those old plants—typically gas-fired units in urban areas. No surprise: SDG'E hasn't built a new power plant in its service territory in more than 30 years.
What isn't discussed in the project description on the Sunrise Powerlink web site is what I'd call a web of deception: the larger master plan for linking it to additional transmission lines into Arizona's Valley of the Sun and to the huge power park 50 miles southwest of Phoenix. The overall vision of multiple interconnected links is discussed in a report on future transmission projects on the California Independent System Operator web site.
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