Indicative of the increased pressure for more integrated energy planning in other high-growth western areas, the San Diego-North Baja, Mexico region increasingly has to be considered comprehensively in applying integrated energy planning to what is fast becoming a more economically and demographically linked part of the Southwest, speakers emphasized at a workshop conducted by the California Energy Commission (CEC) earlier in December.

The state energy panel already has concluded that “numerous growth trends” influence energy supply-demand, energy-related economic development and environmental quality on both sides of the border, prompting the CEC to hold a one-day workshop in conjunction with the San Diego Association of Governments.

“Public interest, regional planning and economic development groups have expressed concerns about energy issues in the border region,” the CEC summary of the meeting said. “Groups from the Imperial Valley-Mexicali area anticipate energy-related impacts to water availability, the agriculture industry, and air quality.”

A committee of two of the five state energy commission members, John Geesman and Jim Boyd, conducted the session as part of a long series of public workshops throughout the state to gather information and ideas for California’s 2005 Integrated Energy Policy Report that is due to the governor and state legislature Nov. 1.

Among the interesting facts offered from demographers, economists, regional planner and utility officials is the projection that more than 9 million people will be living in the North Baja region south of the border by 2020 and San Diego County is supposed to add another 1.1 million people during that time. By 2010, a San Diego State University professor said there will be more people living on the Mexican side of the Baja-U.S. border than on the United States side.

A San Diego Gas and Electric Co. official told the commissioners that a recent power emergency in San Diego caused the Sempra Energy utility to bring natural gas supplies from the North Baja Pipeline into San Diego to fuel electric generation plants. As part of the corporate organization that is scheduled to break ground next month in Baja for the West Coast’s first liquefied natural gas (LNG) receiving terminal, SDG&E’s David Geier urged the state officials not to separate the two regions.

Geier recommended more “bi-national, overarching planning” for both electricity and natural gas supplies to make sure both sides of the border have adequate resources for fueling electric generation.

A Baja state official who participated in the CEC workshop said LNG imports and regasification projects are “critical” longer term to meeting the growing energy needs in his Mexican state.

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