Edison International Plans $21.5 Billion of Capex in Next Five Years

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Researched by Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, Texas)--Power generation and utility company Edison International (NYSE:EIX) (Rosemead, California) recently reported fourth-quarter and full-year earnings for the 2009 fiscal year. Although the company's core earnings, which were $1.06 billion for the year, were down $200 million, Edison International plans extensive capital investments in the coming years.

Speaking of the company's utility subsidiary Southern California Edison (SCE) (Rosemead), which serves more than 14 million people in California, Chairman, President and CEO Ted Craver, said: "SCE's 2009 capital spending was a record $2.9 billion. Once the rate case was finalized last March, we ramped up spending to improve the reliability of the distribution system. By year end, SCE had completed the first three segments of the Tehachapi renewable transmission project and had installed the first 150,000 of over 5 million advanced smart-connect meters. Our investment efforts will accelerate in 2010 as we move more transmission projects into construction, accelerate the pace of smart-connect installations, move the rooftop solar program into full gear and undertake the many reliability-enhancing investments in the distribution system."

SCE is planning $21.5 billion in capital investment in 2010 through 2014. Planned spending will be about $4 billion for 2010 and is planned to increase annually through 2012. Some of the spending this year and in 2011 will go toward environmental control measures. In August last year, the company's subsidiary Midwest Generation (Chicago, Illinois) was sued by federal and Illinois state lawyers over environmental violations for six coal-fired power plants in Illinois, which had been repeatedly upgraded without implementing required pollution controls.

"We've also made important progress evaluating our compliance options for NOx and SO2 emissions controls. We have finalized our plans now for NOx compliance. We decided on a $158 million investment program for NOx controls using selective noncatalytic reduction technology, or SNCRs, at Midwest Generation plants. We'll be retrofitting roughly 80% of our capacity, which will allow Midwest Gen to meet its compliance requirements beginning in 2012. Importantly on February 8, the Illinois EPA issued our first SNCR construction permit for one of our Joliet units. Construction will commence this spring."

Industrial Info is tracking more than $8 billion of Edison projects that are planned or under way. The company's San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station in San Clemente, California, will begin a $400 million-plus replacement of the facility's No. 3 steam generator. The current Alstom (EPA:ALO) steam generator will be replaced with two steam generators supplied by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Limited (TYO:7011) (Tokyo, Japan). As part of the replacement, a 40-day, $18 million outage will occur at the facility's Unit 3 reactor, which will consist of inspection and general maintenance work to the unit. Information on these several other Edison International projects is available in Industrial Info's North American Power Industry Database.

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