SCE gets approval for transmission line

During the 2000-01 energy crisis, many experts pointed out that California had sufficient generation capacity to meet demand, but insufficient transportation to get the electricity to consumers. With potential shortages in Southern California this summer, the approval of new transmission lines could not come any sooner:

Southern California Edison Co. has won preliminary approval to build a high-voltage transmission line that would bring enough electricity from Arizona to serve 900,000 Southland homes while providing savings for ratepayers.

The California Independent System Operator, the agency that runs much of the state's electricity grid, said Friday that it had OKd what would be the first major expansion of SoCal Edison's power transmission system in 15 years.

...If built, the 230-mile line will bring as much as 1,200 megawatts of power produced by efficient gas-turbine generators from the Palo Verde area west of Phoenix to Palm Springs beginning in 2009.

The new line should save consumers money by removing transmission bottlenecks, boosting supplies, lowering prices and reducing the ability of power generators to manipulate the market as some did during California's energy crisis of 2000-01, said James Sweeney, an energy expert at Stanford University.