Construction Halted on California's $2.1 Billion Tehachapi Transmission Project as Regulators Assess Alternate Routes

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Written by John Egan for Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, Texas)--Question: How do you turn a $2.1 billion, high-voltage electric transmission project into a potential $3 billion project? Answer: Re-route five miles of it through Chino Hills, an upscale Los Angeles suburb--after construction has already begun.

Southern California Edison (SCE) (Rosemead, California), the utility subsidiary of Edison International (NYSE:EIX) (Rosemead), has been building the Tehachapi Renewable Transmission Project (TRTP) for more than a year. It will bring up to 4,500 megawatts (MW) of electricity, most of it generated from renewable sources, from Kern County to Los Angeles and San Bernardino counties. The project has 11 separate sections, one of which runs through Chino Hills.

This high-voltage transmission project is one of several in California that utility sources say are necessary if utilities are to meet the state's requirement that they get 33% of their electricity from renewable energy sources by 2020. California's law is the most aggressive renewable portfolio standard (RPS) in the U.S. In practice, the RPS necessitates construction of transmission projects to bring renewable electricity from the mountains and deserts of the Western U.S. to customers located in Los Angeles, San Diego and San Francisco.

The CPUC approved the TRTP in December 2009. The CPUC's 1,500-page environmental assessment of the project found that, on balance, routing about five miles of the project through existing rights of way in Chino Hills was environmentally superior to all other alternatives, because the route would minimize new environmental impacts and avoid the need for construction of new infrastructure through new rights of way. Based on that decision, SCE began building the 11-segment project.

The route through Chino Hills approved by the CPUC had been home to 220-kilovolt (kV) transmission lines for 60 years. Pursuant to the CPUC's 2009 approval of TRTP, those lines were torn down to accommodate the larger towers that would carry 500-kV lines. SCE said it has finished building 12 of the 18 500-kV transmission structures the project would need to go through Chino Hills.

Last November, after years of opposition from Chino Hills residents, the CPUC halted construction on a five-mile section of TRTP that goes through the city. It ordered SCE to investigate the costs and impacts of a number of re-routing options for the five-mile stretch. In addition, SCE was instructed to estimate the impact that these re-routings could have on renewable energy generation projects that require TRTP to get their power to market, as well how each new route option would affect TRTP's overall in-service date.

On January 10, in a 122-page regulatory filing with the CPUC, SCE detailed the feasibility, cost and other impacts associated with five main re-routing options:

• Option 1 would add $116 million in incremental construction costs and create $10 million to $87 million in lost renewable generation value.


• Option 2 would add $121 million in incremental construction costs and cause $10 million to $87 million in lost generation value.


• Option 3 would add $104 million in incremental construction costs and create $10 million in lost generation value.


• Option 4 would add $118 million in incremental construction costs and cause $10 million to $87 million in lost generation value.


• Option 5, which would underground a portion of the five-mile line, would add $859 million in incremental construction costs and create $585 million in lost generation value.

A slight variant of Option 5 would add $993 million to the $2.1 billion cost of TRTP and cause $585 million in lost renewable generation value, SCE said in its CPUC testimony.

In a statement to Industrial Info, SCE spokesman Paul Klein said the utility "understands that residents don't like transmission lines next to their backyards." But the TRTP "is a critically important, high-voltage transmission line, the timely completion of which is essential for California's progress toward its aggressive renewable energy goals."

Klein said the approved route for the Tehachapi project was considered in a comprehensive review by the CPUC that largely focused on the proper route in the Chino Hills area. The review included extensive study, public hearings, meetings and considerable input from the community, he noted. "If a decision is made to move the lines from SCE's existing right-of-way in Chino Hills, the determination of cost responsibility for changes to the project (if any) will be made by regulators at a future date." v The City of Chino Hills reportedly spent more than $2 million fighting the line. In late January, after SCE filed its cost estimates for the alternate routes, the city asked the CPUC to have the utility conduct further analyses of the partial undergrounding option. Supplemental testimony from the utility on that option is due any day.

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