San Diego Gas & Electric

San Diego Gas & Electric
Subsidiary
Industry Utilities
Founded 1881
Headquarters San Diego, California, United States
Products Natural Gas & Electric
Parent Sempra Energy
Website http://www.sdge.com/

San Diego Gas & Electric (SDG&E) is the utility that provides natural gas and electricity to San Diego County and southern Orange County in southwestern California, United States. It is owned by Sempra Energy, a Fortune 500 energy services holding company that is based in San Diego.

SDG&E is a regulated public utility that provides energy service to 3.3 million consumers through 1.4 million electric meters and more than 840,000 natural gas meters in San Diego and southern Orange counties. The utility's area spans 4,100 square miles (10,600 square kilometers). SDG&E employs about 5,000 people.

In 2004, the California Public Utilities Commission approved SDG&E's long-term energy resource plan, which relies on a balanced mix of resources to meet the growing energy needs of San Diego. That mix includes increased emphasis on energy efficiency, more renewable energy resources, and additional baseload generation plants and transmission capacity. In 2014 SDG&E had a renewables mix of 36.4%, more than the 33% requirement by 2020.[1][2]

Interconnections

SDG&E has two 230 kV lines (Miguel-Tijuana line and the LaRosita-Imperial Valley Line) that connect the Californian transmission system with the Mexican Comisión Federal de Electricidad transmission system in Baja California. The Path 45 transmission corridor, spanning over the United States-Mexico border, has a capacity of 408 Megawatts. SDG&E has a 500 kV line connecting to Arizona Public Service. There is also a 230 kV line connecting to Imperial Irrigation District. Both of these are part of the massive Path 46 transmission system ensuring Southern California has adequate energy.

The Sunrise Powerlink 117-mile, 500,000-volt transmission line linking San Diego to Imperial Valley, one of the most renewable-rich regions in California was put into service on June 18, 2012.

Early history

Henry H. Jones, a civil, construction and electrical engineer, came to San Diego in 1910 to take the position of vice president and manager of the San Diego Consolidated Gas & Electric Company, and accepted the position as president, shortly thereafter.

Henry Harrison Jones was born at Reading, Pennsylvania, March 31, 1874, son of Richard Hall and Ellen (Hughes) Jones. After graduating from the high school of his native city in 1890 he was for a year a bookkeeper in the Second National Bank, and then entered Lehigh University to pursue a technical course. He graduated with the degree Civil Civil Engineer in 1897, following which for a year he was draftsman and assistant engineer for the Chicago, Peoria and St. Louis Railroad Company at Springfield, Illinois, then was a member of a general engineering staff of the Pennsylvania Railroad at Philadelphia until 1899, in which year he again went West and until 1903 was in Chicago as an assistant engineer of the Chicago & Northwestern Railroad. For seventeen years his work was chiefly confined to traction and electric power engineering. He was general superintendent for the Springfield^ Railway & Light Company at Springfield, Illinois, until 1909, and before coming to San Diego was manager of the Northern Idaho & Montana Power Company. In 1910 he accepted the post of vice president and manager of the San Diego Consolidated Gas & Electric Company, where he did much to extend and improve the facilities of that corporation and at the same time exerted himself with a liberal degree of public spirit in the affairs of the community in general.

There are some interesting figures that may be noted to indicate the remarkable expansion of the service of the San Diego Consolidated Gas and Electric Company during a ten-year period incidentally reflecting upon the good management and enterprise of Mr. Jones, as well as upon the general progress of San Diego and environment. By 1920 the company furnished gas and electric service to San Diego city and forty adjacent towns and districts as far north as San Juan Capistrano in Orange County, and south to the Mexican border. The service in these developments proved a remarkable boon to the ranching and rural communities adjacent to San Diego, where as a result of his management, the homes all had the advantages of lighting and power available to city communities. When Mr. Jones took the management of the company in 1910 it had less than six thousand electric customers and less than nine thousand gas customers, while the number of customers in each branch in 1920 numbered nearly twenty-seven thousand. The quantity measure of service increased in proportion, necessitating the investment of millions of dollars in new equipment and distribution systems. The company in 1920 had five hundred and thirty miles of gas main and over seven hundred miles of electric poll lines.

Mr. Jones served as a director and member of the executive committee during the Panama-California Exposition (1915), whose group was responsible for the designing, creation and building the first, original structures and buildings in Balboa Park, San Diego, California. He was associated with many of the local organizations to promote the objects of the World war, and he had some active military experience during the Spanish- American war as a member of the Fourth Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry, participating in the Puerto Rican campaign. He was a member of the United Spanish War Veterans, the Loyal Legion, is a Mason, Elk and a member of the Cuyamaca Club, San Diego Country Club, University Club of San Diego, San Diego Rowing Club, Cabrillo Club, Los Angeles Country Club, University Club of Chicago, and Masonic Club of San Francisco.

United States versus San Diego Gas & Electric

The Encanto Gas Holder was a natural gas holding station composed of over 9 miles (14 km) of underground 30-inch (760 mm) pipe on about 16 acres (65,000 m2) of land in Lemon Grove, adjacent to the city of San Diego. First brought on line in the mid-1950s, the Encanto Gas Holder was decommissioned in 2000-2001 by San Diego Gas and Electric, Sempra Energy as the agent of SDG&E, and the IT Corporation as the main contractor for the decommissioning. TriState was brought on board to abate strips of asbestos-containing pipe coating for another contractor to cut the holder bottle into 40-foot (12 m) long sections. TriState was later tasked with stripping the coating at the gas holder site despite employee and neighboring residents' concerns of friable asbestos generated as a byproduct of the gross stripping processes employed by SDG&E contractors.[3]

In 2006, SDG&E was indicted by U.S. Attorney Carol C. Lam in the Southern District of California on 5 counts constituting environmental crimes, including conspiracy, fraud, and 3 counts of mishandling regulated asbestos containing materials in violation of the National Emissions Standards for Hazardous Air Pollutants. Additional defendants include SDG&E's director of environmental compliance, an uncertified asbestos removal consultant, and the IT Corporation project manager.[4] Charges were dismissed without prejudice in November 2006, but the defendants were re-indicted in early 2007 on nearly identical charges, and the case was heard in San Diego's federal court in June and July 2007.[5] On July 13, 2007, 3 guilty verdicts were returned against defendants SDG&E, IT Corporation project manager Kyle Rhuebottom, and SDG&E environmental specialist David "Willie" Williamson, including false statements, failure to provide adequate notice to government agencies of regulated asbestos on the site, and violating asbestos work practice standards for the purpose of avoiding the cost of lawful environmental compliance. SDG&E environmental director Jacquelyn McHugh was found not guilty, and defense attorneys vowed an appeal for unjust prosecution.[6][7]

In late 2007 U.S. District Judge Dana Sabraw ruled that SDG&E and the workers deserved a new trial. Criminal charges were dismissed against SDG&E on October 6, 2009.

Marine helicopter crash lawsuit

On September 3, 2008 a jury awarded $55.6 million to the families of four United States Marine aviators killed when their UH-1 helicopter crashed into a SDG&E 130-foot-tall utility tower at Camp Pendleton. The amount awarded included $15.2 million in compensatory damages and $40.4 million in punitive damages. The jury held SDG&E responsible for $9.48 million of the compensation amount and all of the punitive damages.[8]

During the trial, the plaintiff's attorney argued that SDG&E was negligent because of its policy of placing warning lights only on towers over 200 feet (61 m) in height. The company said the power line had been on the base for 25 years and that SDG&E would have installed lights if the Marine Corps had asked. Since the crash, the company has installed lights, said Todd Macaluso, the lawyer for the families. SDG&E said that it would appeal the judgment.[8]

2011 county-wide power outage

On September 8, 2011, at 3:38 PM Pacific Standard Time, a major power outage occurred leaving all 1.4 million SDG&E's customers without power. The problems started with a fault in an Arizona Public Service substation near Yuma, Arizona. This caused widespread problems in Western Arizona and Eastern California. In time, SDG&E's system was drawing from SONGS considerably more power than was being produced, pulling it from Los Angeles, and a "safety net" system cut it off from the nuclear plant. Once this happened, SDG&E's system rapidly collapsed due to mismatch of generation and load, not being able to drop load faster than generation was lost. SDG&E implemented their system restoration plan and cautioned its customers to expect a prolonged outage.[9] The outage appears to have been caused by the actions of an employee at APS's North Gila substation in Arizona, and it is unknown why safeguards did not keep the outage limited to the Yuma area.[10]

By Friday morning on the 9th, power had been restored to all 1.4 million SDG&E customers.[11]

References

  1. ↑ Peter Maloney (19 April 2016). "SDG&E 'ahead of the curve' to meet California's 50% RPS with help from storage". Utility Dive. Retrieved 20 April 2016.
  2. ↑ Biennial RPS Program Update Section 913.6 Report | January 2016 | Page 5. California Public Utilities Commission
  3. ↑ US Attorney's press release
  4. ↑ SDG&E, workers indicted on fraud
  5. ↑ SDG&E asbestos-removal trial begins
  6. ↑ SDG&E Found Guilty Violating Asbestos Removal Standards
  7. ↑ FBI/DOJ press release
  8. 1 2 Perry, Tony, "$55 Million Awarded In Marine Air Crash", Los Angeles Times, September 4, 2008, p. B3.
  9. ↑ Vives & Blankstein, "1.4 million without power; electricity may not be fully restored until Friday", Los Angeles Times, September 8, 2011
  10. ↑ Damon Gross, Cause of Widespread Outage Under Investigation; APS Works to Restore Service to Customers in Yuma Area, APS News Release, September 8, 2011. Accessed September 9, 2011
  11. ↑ Baker, Debbi (September 9, 2011). "Power restored to all 1.4 million customers". The San Diego Union-Tribune. Retrieved September 9, 2011.

Further reading

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