Power Engineer
PG&E asserts that the Santa Cruz 115Kv Reinforcement Project, which will add a second 115 kV circuit between Green Valley Substation and Rob Roy Substation, is needed to “increase transmission system reliability in the Santa Cruz area during outages.”
We believe that PG&E has not demonstrated that there is a reliability problem, and if there is, in fact, a problem, that there are alternatives PG&E has not explored.
NOPOC has retained an independent power engineer, a specialist in the field of large-scale power distribution and power grids, to examine all the data, evaluate PG&E’s assertions, and identify better alternatives to the problem, if a problem does exist. Through the analysis of data from power flow modeling software, we believe that our engineer will ultimately propose an environmentally superior, less costly alternative to PG&E’s proposed solution, that does not require the construction of massive transmission power lines – an industrial-scale project that will quickly become obsolete and outdated, at a time when the trend is moving rapidly toward distributed, decentralized power systems using solar, wind, cogeneration, and other innovative energy solutions.
The findings and recommendations of our power engineer will be submitted to the CPUC and will become a part of the official record. They will be included in our comments on the Draft EIR. Since PG&E will be required to specifically respond to them in the Final EIR, they will play a crucial role in our argument before the CPUC.
It should be noted that our power engineer has graciously agreed to work at reduced rates for NOPOC, and indeed has even performed some preliminary work for free.
We believe that PG&E has not demonstrated that there is a reliability problem, and if there is, in fact, a problem, that there are alternatives PG&E has not explored.
NOPOC has retained an independent power engineer, a specialist in the field of large-scale power distribution and power grids, to examine all the data, evaluate PG&E’s assertions, and identify better alternatives to the problem, if a problem does exist. Through the analysis of data from power flow modeling software, we believe that our engineer will ultimately propose an environmentally superior, less costly alternative to PG&E’s proposed solution, that does not require the construction of massive transmission power lines – an industrial-scale project that will quickly become obsolete and outdated, at a time when the trend is moving rapidly toward distributed, decentralized power systems using solar, wind, cogeneration, and other innovative energy solutions.
The findings and recommendations of our power engineer will be submitted to the CPUC and will become a part of the official record. They will be included in our comments on the Draft EIR. Since PG&E will be required to specifically respond to them in the Final EIR, they will play a crucial role in our argument before the CPUC.
It should be noted that our power engineer has graciously agreed to work at reduced rates for NOPOC, and indeed has even performed some preliminary work for free.