Transmission Lines versus Solar Power: Back to the Past or Leap to the Future?

By Jackie Devereaux

 

Yucca Valley, CA  -  At least two giant public utility companies said environmentalists "need not worry" about plans to build a "mega grid" of transmission power lines through Southern California because they are scaling back, considering other routes or carefully moving forward despite growing concerns.

 

The Green Path North proposal by Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP),  plans to construct 85 miles of new high-voltage transmission power lines through sensitive lands in the Hi-Desert and the Coachella Valley.  The Sunrise Powerlink proposed by San Diego Gas & Electric calls for 600 towers through 150 miles of Imperial and San Diego counties. 

 

Both plans met staunch grassroots opposition that has successfully stalled or steered those projects into other directions.  Two giant utilities claim they need more transmission lines to meet a state mandated "green power" goal by 2010.  Critics claim the companies do not want "green power" but instead want to control and manipulate the price of electric power.

 

LADWP has been hatching plans for two years to build Green Path North and applied for a "Right of Way" with the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) in December 2006.  The utility giant initially wanted Green Path North to begin at a new Palm Springs substation, then travel north along state route 62 through the hi-desert to join another electrical substation near Victorville. 

 

Utility companies claim they need these "mega grids" in order to meet a state mandated goal of 20 percent energy coming from green power sources, such as solar, wind and renewables by 2010, and with 33 percent green power by 2020.

 

Green Path North - Environmentalists' side of the story

 

Opponents say this is a lie.  Jim Harvey, executive director of Alliance for Responsible Energy Policy (AREP), a non-profit organization in the Hi-Desert opposing any new transmission lines said LADWP's plans also involve the taking of private properties through eminent domain. 

 

"There's a huge effort underway to obtain federal wilderness designation that for many years now was threatened by big solar and big wind industries and their transmission corridors," Harvey said. 

 

"Those of us opposed to Green Path North now have a genuine opportunity to make a difference," he noted the LADWP's route threatens a portion of the Big Morongo Canyon Preserve.  "Designating this and other areas as federal 'wilderness' will make it much more difficult to get approval for these devastating big energy projects," he said.

 

"The Green Path North project is not green at all," Harvey added, "In fact, it's the least likely way to bring green energy to California. If LADWP really wanted to increase green energy production they could do it in the four following ways:"

 

First, repeal the failed federal Energy Policy Act of 2005 that only benefits big energy companies.  Secondly, offer tax credits, rebates and low interest loans (from AB 811) to home an business owners for installing photo voltaic (solar panels) and micro wind turbines.  Thirdly, pass "feed-in tariff" laws requiring utility companies to  purchase surplus renewable energy from home and business owners at market rates.  Fourthly, remove the restrictions current California CSI law, that limit sizes of a renewable energy system in the home or business - this discourages renewable energy production surplus.

 

"Germany has been working towards achieving 2,000 megawatts of electrical capacity every year from rooftop solar panels.  Europe collects more solar power and has less sunny days than California.  By 2011, they will have added 10,000 megawatts - that's huge.  Green Path North only expects to bring in 800 megawatts of power, so there is no comparison," Harvey said.

 

"If LADWP's real agenda was to build a 20 percent renewables by 2010, then they'd be doing it this way," he added.  "And as far as looking into alternate routes, they are a smokescreen for their real motives - to control the supply and price of electricity," he said.

 

A Feb. 2, 2009 article by Carol A. Overland, a utility regulatory attorney and electrical consultant based in Minnesota, said not to believe big utility propaganda about why they need new transmission lines.  Overland said, "Planning for peak loads," is a transmission lie.  "We'll have blackouts" or "freeze in the dark" are transmission lies.  Utility company "forecasts" are a lie.  "It's for renewable energy" is a lie. "Long distance transmission" is a lie. "Utilities frame of need for public purposes" is a lie.

LADWP's side of the story