At the beginning of a month-long California Public Utilities Commission hearing on San Diego Gas & Electric’s proposed Sunrise Powerlink transmission project, utility officials called the project “essential.” Consumer advocates, however, questioned whether the utility could guarantee that it would stay within the project’s $1.3 billion price forecast. “In the past five years our customer demand has increased by over 1,000 MW,” stated Mike Niggli, SDG&E chief operating officer. He said the project is “first and foremost” about reliability, adding that the line would help the utility comply with regulators’ requirements to use renewable energy. The utility most recently characterized the cost of the project at $1.3 billion--down from $1.4 billion. Michael Shames, Utility Consumers’ Action Network executive director, questioned that number. He noted that there could be cost overruns and that any costs would be approved by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, not state regulators. “There is very little the California Public Utilities Commission could do if the project turned out to be more expensive than SDG&E projects,” Shames stated. Shames also noted that the project could bring in out-of-state coal-fired power, as well as renewable energy. The Sunrise project is slated to be a 500 kV, 150-mile line running from the Imperial Valley into the San Diego Basin.