With the growing inadequacies in both natural gas andelectricity delivery systems that emerged as part of the summer’swholesale electricity market problems, California regulatorsThursday ordered separate statewide investigations of bothinfrastructures with an emphasis on the gas side in Sempra Energy’sterritory 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 the electricity relief measures(AB 970) passed by the state legislature last summer. The naturalgas investigation was prompted by an emergency request by San DiegoGas and Electric in the midst of the summer’s electricitycontroversy. SDG&E asked to change its gas curtailment rules sothe three power plants it serves would be curtailed before largecommercial and industrial customers.

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.

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