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California Governor Opens First Major Power Plant Since 1988 by Staff Environmental News Network, June 28, 2001

A new era in California's energy history began June 27 as Gov. Gray Davis flipped a switch to ceremoniously start the turbines in the state's first new power plant in 13 years.

California is facing an electricity shortage of unprecedented proportions. The state's stressed power grid is still liable to experience rolling blackouts this summer, but the new plant is a start. During the next two weeks, California will be bringing a combined total of more than 1,300 MW on line — enough to power the city of San Jose.

"We are taking control of our energy destiny," Governor Davis said. "This is the first major power plant built in California since 1988. It's clean, efficient, and it was built in record time."

The Sunrise Power Project 320 megawatt sitting on a dusty field in Kern County is jointly owned by Edison Mission Energy and Texaco Power and Gasification. The power generated at the Sunrise plant will be sold to California's Department of Water Resources under a long-term contract at a reasonable rate. It will be used in part to pump water through the high-production agricultural lands of Kern County.

At first the Sunrise plant will operate as a simple, single-cycle plant that burns natural gas to turn turbines that generate electricity. By the summer of 2003, the plant will be converted to a more efficient combined-cycle plant. It will turn the exhaust from the first set of turbines into steam that will then be used to run another set of turbines, generating still more electricity. By summer 2003, the plant is expected to produce 585 megawatts.

"We're building more new power plants than at any other time in our history," Governor Davis said. "Next week, I will be cutting the ribbon on the 500-megawatt Sutter power plant near Yuba City. It will be the largest gas-fired power plant built in California in a generation."

In the 12 years before Governor Davis took office in 1999, no major power plant was licensed in California. Since then, California has licensed 16 major plants and 10 "peaker" plants that supply power during hours of peak demand. Sunrise is the first of four generating stations scheduled to come on line this summer.

The combination of these new power plants with additional renewables, distributed generation, and re-rates of existing power plants will bring more than 4,000 new megawatts online by the end of September. A megawatt is enough electricity to power 1,000 typical California homes.

At no other time in the history of California have so many new power plants been under construction and in the pipeline.

Construction began on the Sunrise Power Project on Dec. 7, 2000; it became operational in a record six-and-a-half months. The construction force worked 18-hour days, six days a week, and the plant was brought on line 32 days ahead of schedule.

Because the plant was completed before July 1, it is eligible for more than $1 million in construction incentive payments under an executive order from Gov. Davis. Even though the project was built in record time, it meets or exceeds all pertinent environmental and safety standards.

Last summer, as wholesale power prices in California began to soar to runaway levels, it became apparent that new supply across the western United States was needed urgently. Edison set out to find a means to bring a large, new power project on line in less than one year. This is something that had never been done before, said John Bryson, Edison International chairman, CEO, and president, who attended the opening of the Sunrise plant.

Edison's long-term partner, Texaco, had begun permitting the site as a 320-MW, enhanced-oil-recovery-cogeneration project scheduled to start in 2002. But permitting stalled, the project lost its steam purchaser, and its turbine was on the dock about to be shipped to Brazil when the Edison Mission Energy stepped in. They proposed reconfiguring the project as a combined cycle power plant and splititng the construction into two phases so the first phase could start up in time for this summer's peak demand.

Still, rolling blackouts are possible this summer, but at least Californians will get an hour's notice. As of June 15, the California Independent Systems Operator (ISO) put in place a system for issuing a public warning two days before the possibility of rotating blackouts. This notice will be refined 24 hours ahead of time based on dynamic factors such as weather, power-plant and transmission-line outages, and conservation.

If rotating outages appear likely, the ISO will notify local utilities and the Governor's Office of Emergency Services 90 minutes ahead. That will give utilities time to provide a one hour's notice to the news media, the public, and other agencies about where the outages will occur and how many customers will be affected.

The California ISO is a not-for-profit public-benefit corporation that is responsible for managing the flow of electricity along the state's long-distance, high-voltage power lines.

California ISO president and CEO Terry Winter said people need information about the possibility of blackouts. "Our goal is to give people the information they need to plan their lives, run their businesses, and reduce the impact of rotating outages. We will be fine tuning this system through the summer to make sure we're achieving that goal."