Red, White, & Blue?and Green?in Tehachapi

Donald Rumsfeld, meet Mike Peevey. While the California Public Utilities Commission president and the secretary of defense didn?t actually encounter each other, the Department of Defense landed at a June 23 workshop of the CPUC?s transmission proceeding. The session was intended to find avenues for Tehachapi-region wind power to get to Southern California Edison territory and other load centers. The DOD said one possible transmission route could interfere with defense operations. Approved earlier this month, the commission?s Tehachapi transmission order aims at tapping 4,000 MW of wind potential to help meet the state?s renewables goals. Edison must file a certificate of public convenience and necessity for the first round of Tehachapi upgrades in six months. A collaborative study group, including utilities, wind developers, and resource agencies, is required to develop a phased plan for further upgrades, which Edison is supposed to deliver in nine months. Planes from Edwards Air Force Base and the U.S. Navy in general fly over 20,000 miles of airspace, and the Tehachapi region ?is critical to national defense testing and evaluation,? according to Dwight Deakin, chair of the encroachment prevention and management committee for the Air Force Flight Test Center, Edwards Air Force Base. One potential new transmission line ?jumped off the map? as a possible problem for weapons systems, said Deakin. Without delving into specifics, Deakin said the problem involved software that can misidentify new structures when mapping topography. ?Green resources are important to the state . . . but we also provide a critical mission,? Deakin said, adding that it?s important to ?integrate? military and green power goals. He recommended working closely with planners to avoid conflicts later on. Planning new lines as close as possible to existing lines will minimize the number of routes that planes must fly over, said Anthony Parisi, head of the Navy Range Sustainability Office, Weapons Division. While Deakin and Parisi spent much of the workshop scrutinizing maps, Edison identified a project from the Vincent-to-Antelope-to-Tehachapi area and a reconductored line as its preference for phase one. ?I?m supposed to guess what the crystal ball says [the] build-out is,? said Jorge Chacon, Edison power systems planner, referring to the CPUC directive that projects must accommodate both currently proposed and potential wind projects. The CPUC directed Pacific Gas & Electric and Edison to evaluate upgrades in their service territories to deliver Tehachapi wind generation to different load centers. But San Diego Gas & Electric is off the hook because of its distance from the windswept locale. Jon Fisher, PPM Energy director of transmission origination, said it?s ?critical? that its 201 MW project is operational by 2006. Wind developers have ?one last chance? to grab generous federal tax credits for wind development before they are likely to expire at the end of 2006, said Fisher. Edison signaled it?s ready to interconnect PPM?s project, which is not strictly part of the Tehachapi plan but is located near the region.

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Red, White, & Blue?and Green?in Tehachapi

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