Emphasizing state energy planners’ current concerns about generation in the southern half of the state, the California Energy Commission (CEC) in less than a week hurried along four separate generation projects, including repowering and peaking facilities. Three of the actions came last Wednesday at the power plant-siting panel’s regular business meeting in Sacramento.

As a result, close to 1,000 MW of new power generation capability totaling more than $500 million is in the permitting or development pipeline, with the lead project being a 128 MW repowering by the Imperial Irrigation District (IID) in the southeast corner of California. The five-member CEC authorized a “small power plant exemption” for the public-sector generator, allowing it to obtain local permits based on engineering and environmental analysis completed by the energy commission staff.

IID filed a $73.5 million proposal in May to replace its El Centro Unit #3 boiler with a combustion turbine and heat recovery steam generation, boosting the facility’s output by 84 MW. California’s laws permit the CEC to provide an exemption from normal permitting processes when a generator adds capacity of 100 MW or less. IID’s Unit #3 is connected directly to Southern California Gas Co.’s high-pressure natural gas metering station at the El Centro Generating Station site.

For a second project, a proposed 500 MW plant in eastern Los Angeles County in the City of Industry, the CEC staff completed a preliminary assessment recommending that the project be eventually approved by the commission. The simple-cycle natural gas-fired plant would be built by a subsidiary of Edison Mission Energy, an affiliate of Southern California Edison Co., on an 11.8-acre site currently used to store electronic waste.

Two other proposed plants in south-central California were approved Wednesday as “data adequate” to begin the CEC’s 12-month permitting process:

Both projects are slated to begin construction in 2008 and begin operations the following year, according to the CEC.

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