With growing inadequacies in both gas and electricity deliverysystems in California, state regulators have ordered separatestatewide investigations of both with an emphasis on the gas sidein Sempra Energy’s territory in the southern end of the state.

The California Public Utilities Commission’s upcoming review ofthe electricity infrastructure, which duplicates some other effortsaround the state, is mandated by one of the electricity reliefmeasures (AB 970) passed by the state legislature last summer. Thenatural gas investigation was prompted by an emergency request bySan Diego Gas and Electric Co. in the middle of the electricitycontroversy to change its gas curtailment rules.

SDG&E withdrew its emergency request, which the CPUC showedno sign of approving, last month, but the widespread protests therequest drew from merchant generators, environmentalgroups/agencies and consumer groups raised “a number of questionsand issues that require further investigation by this commission,”said Richard Bilas, the CPUC commissioner assigned to the utilityrequest.

“We believe an investigation into the adequacy of SoCalGas’s andSDG&E’s gas transmission systems is warranted,” said Bilas,noting that SDG&E since the early 1990s has been contemplatingserving the expanded electric generation load south of the borderin North Baja at Rosarita Beach.

“We are also extremely concerned that the decision to add loadon SoCalGas’s and SDG&E’s systems may have underminedSDG&E’s ability to provide reliable service to its customers,”he said before the CPUC voted 5-0 for the statewide study.

CPUC President Loretta Lynch expressed strong support for theinvestigation, noting “for the first time in almost a decade,California is faced with the potential of insufficient natural gascapacity. This was something that was inconceivable even a fewyears ago. Certainly the dynamics of the natural gas market havechanged as well as the electricity market.

“In this investigation, I certainly intend to take a close lookat California’s natural gas utility infrastructure to make surethat they continue to meet the increasing demands for natural gasservice.”

The regulators unanimously passed the electricity investigation,too, although there was one partial dissent from Commissioner HenryDuque, who is concerned that part of the investigation duplicatesefforts by the Cal-ISO to bring temporary peaking generation intothe state by next summer, and that the CPUC is not acting swiftenough on utility requests for bilateral contracts, a side issueof the infrastructure study.

Richard Nemec, Los Angeles

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