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Southern California Edison Will Not Seek License to Construct Transmission Line in Arizona at This Time Southern California Edison has announced it will not pursue a re-filing of its application with the Arizona Corporation Commission to build the Arizona portion of the Devers-PaloVerde No. 2 (DPV2) electric transmission line at this time.
In addition, SCE will cease its current pre-filing activities at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission for the project.
The Arizona portion of this transmission line would have extended from the Blythe, Calif. area to the Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station 50 miles west of Phoenix, Ariz.
The DPV2 project, a 270-mile, high-voltage, electric transmission line, was originally filed in Arizona in 2006. SCE intends to pursue construction of the California portion of the project from the Palm Springs area east to Blythe, which is needed to interconnect new conventional and renewable generation resources in the Blythe area.
SCE will continue to study current and future requests for interconnection to the California Independent System Operator (CAISO) grid in southeastern California and western Arizona. If these studies, or subsequent ones, establish the need for new transmission lines in western Arizona to interconnect new renewable or other generation resources into the CAISO system, SCE will seek authorization from the applicable regulatory authorities to construct the necessary transmission lines.
Pedro Pizarro, SCE’s executive vice president of Power Operations, said a recent financial analysis of the project indicates that California’s economic benefits of constructing the Arizona portion of the project are reduced significantly, due to changes in the economy and power markets since SCE’s initial filing with the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) in 2005.
Primary changes include anticipated future renewable generation development, generator interconnection requests in California, future projections of fuel supplies, and reduced demand for electricity in California.
“Results of SCE’s new analysis conclude that the Arizona portion of the project cannot be currently justified as an economic investment primarily funded by California consumers,” Pizarro said. The CPUC approved construction of the entire DPV2 project and issued the company a Certificate of Public Convenience and Necessity in January 2007. SCE has filed a Petition to Modify the Certificate with the commission in order to construct the California portion of DPV2. |
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