There was no shortage of hand-wringing and news mediaannouncements in the West in the wake of recent electricity pricespikes and multi-million-dollar estimated consequences fromCalifornia’s relative modest round of rolling brownouts in andaround the San Francisco Bay Area. The big question — particularin California — is whether new solutions will come fromregulators, lawmakers or the market.

A report due Aug. 1 to California’s Gov. Gray Davis on therecent managed series of power outages and some of the generatingplant problems contributing to that, will provide a clearerindication. But that assumes there are no recurring power peaksthat strain the state’s struggling electricity transmission grid.

A number of the state’s merchant power plant developer/operatorshope the reliability crunch will prompt state policymakers toaccelerate the cumbersome siting process for new natural gas-firedgenerating plants. However, a check of the current status ofproposed plants, aside from five that have been approved (fourunder construction), indicates more, not less, time for approvalsfrom the California Energy Commission.

A CEC project manager indicated last week that very few of theactive pending applications are likely to be approved anytime soon,with the exception of a proposed new plant near Elk Hills in thesouthern San Joaquin Valley co-sponsored by Sempra Energy andOccidental Petroleum and the remodeling of Duke Energy Services’Moss Landing plant along the central California coast. And thoseplants may not gain the go-ahead before the end of the summer atthe earliest.

The delays of more than a year now for another Duke plantremodeling — at Morro Bay, about 80 miles south of Moss Landing— is an example of the predicament facing California. At the sametime that local and environmental concerns delay the start of thestate’s formal siting application process, demands on the oldgenerating facility targeted for remodeling have doubled since 1996when it went on the sales block.

“The existing plant’s production levels have increased 194percent since 1996, due to the increasing demand for electricity inCalifornia,” according to Duke officials. “We forecast the year2000 production levels to be the highest since 1988.”

Duke cites a recently released PG&E statement explaining thechallenges in meeting California’s growing electric supply needs isto recognize that new generation — not transmission — is whatis needed:

“Increasing interstate transmission capacity was an effectivestrategy to acquire needed electric supplies in the past,” PG&Etold Duke. “Today, it would be somewhat like putting more faucetsin your house to overcome a drought. The problem isn’t gettingpower to consumers, it’s producing it. For example, historicallyCalifornia has met up to 20% of its needs by importing hydro powerfrom suppliers in the Northwest and fossil-fueled plants in theSouthwest. Now, due to increased environmental restrictions in theNorthwest and load growth rivaling that of California in theSouthwest, these sources are dwindling.”

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