Cal ISO Didn't Change It's Tune On Anything & Had Never Said Peakers Were Necessary -

All at the SF Guardian. We in the environmental and environmental justice movement who oppose the peakers have been vociferously stating for the last year that Cal ISO never once said that the Peakers were required to shut down Mirant.

What the Cal ISO said in response to the SFPUC staff's purposefully manipulative queries, was that 'Under the current Action Plan' the peakers were required to meet reliability. The Cal ISO also said repeatedly however that it had never been approached by the City with a -different- action plan; and that this was always its stated reason for simply reiterating the 'need' for the Peaker project. The SFPUC staff had its bureaucratic little heart stuck on their hopelessly archaic seven year old action plan, and so repeatedly asked insidiously leading questions that they knew would get the deceptive answers that they wanted -based- on that outdated action plan.

Indeed, as I revealed to you at the Guardian, and as you unacceptably failed to report, (because it rather inconveniently didn't fit into your fairy tale conspiracy theory coverage about PG&E's involvement in this issue) was that Barbara Hale and other staff at the SFPUC even took part in writing at least one of those supposedly independent letters from the Cal ISO stating that the peakers were necessary.

So what was actually going on in real life, is that SFPUC staff were purposely asking manipulative questions of the Cal ISO and then actively co-writing the Cal ISO's responses in order to unethically present to the public and the Board Supervisors a picture of the Peakers situation that was -completely- false so they could build their pet fossil fuel power plant project.

It is therefore no surprise whatsoever, that as soon as someone -else- asked questions of the Cal ISO that were actually designed to get at the truth; that the Cal ISO immediately made clear that the peakers were completely unnecessary.

The fact that your newspaper repeatedly failed to get this aspect of the story right, is a reflection of very poor journalism guided by an ideological bent, instead of a pure search for truth.

I'm all for going after PG&E with a vengeance and kicking it out of town, but not at the expense of truth, and to the very real detriment of the Bayview Hunters Point residents. Residents who have been saying almost unanimously for the last decade that the peakers would be an unnecessary and unwanted poison in their neighborhood.

Next time, you need to do better; instead of tilting at every PG&E windmill that presents itself (just because it's an attractive target), when the real story of electricity and abused utility agency power in San Francisco goes much deeper.

I still respect the SF Guardian, but y'all have lost a -lot- of credibility with me over this past year...

peace

Eric Brooks

Whoa Eric...what a great response. While I can't speak to whether or not the SFPUC co-wrote the Cal ISO's response to their "purposely manipulative" questions (I'll take your word for it), I can speak a little bit about SF Peninsula and overall electrical reliability.

First of all, a basic principal: Electricity is the only commodity that is produced, transmitted and consumed in the same instant in time. Constant balance of electrical supply and demand must be maintained. Ideally, generation supply is placed strategically nearby the areas of largest demand, or the "load centers". Without going into details, it provides for the greatest level of electrical reliability from an engineering perspective (and I'm not an engineer). Second, electricity is not produced out of thin air (windmills notwithstanding). It's made by generators: Conventional thermal (steam turbines from boilers heated by natural gas), geothermal, cogeneration (steam is produced as a byproduct of a manufacturing process, for example) combustion turbines ("peakers" that use jet fuel or diesel), hydro, nuclear, renewable resources (wind, solar). The San Francisco Peninsula is geographically limited in the type of generation that can be placed there. It's pretty much limited to conventional, cogeneration and combustion turbine generation with potentially a little wind and/or solar mixed in. No one on the San Francisco Peninsula wants a generating plant of any kind anywhere near them. You've heard of NIMBY, right? Not In My Back Yard? Well, people in California and, apparently, particularly in San Francisco, apply the BANANA principle. That stands for Build Absolutely Nothing Anywhere Near Anything.

While the ISO is responsible for overall ISO controlled grid reliability, PG&E and the ISO together are responsible for San Francisco Peninsula reliability. PG&E owns and physically operates that portion of the grid at all voltage levels; the customers served off of that portion of the grid are PG&E's. From a purely interconnected grid reliability perspective, whether San Francisco is connected to the grid or not has virtually no impact. The city could, electrically speaking, fall off the face of the earth and the interconnected grid would continue to operate reliably...maybe even more reliably without that 900MW or so of load hanging off that portion of the system that is the SF peninsula (it is also an electrical peninsula). The ISO has invested significant time and resources explaining ad nauseum to the SFPUC, the Mayor and SF-area customer advocacy groups the reliability risks associated with decommissioning all of the peninsula generation. If San Francisco and PG&E want to assume that risk, frankly, it should be their business.

It's not that the SF peninsula couldn't survive electrically on a day-to-day basis without the generation because the transmission system is fairly robust, but there is significant risk both post-contingency (i.e., sudden onset events, such as an airplane taking out all those lines that run together across the 101) and when accommodating scheduled and forced line and equipment outages for routine work, maintenance and system upgrades.

Alternatively, PG&E could install enough special protection and remedial action schemes, all of which result in the automatic shedding of electrical customer load, to maintain post-contingency area grid integrity and meet established reliability requirements for virtually any system condition. Unfortunately (or perhaps fortunately), one of the principal reliability criteria is thou shalt not put any customers in the dark as a result of a single contingency. The electrical engineering that goes into this is astonishing; the general public has no idea whatsoever of the reliability criteria utilities must adhere to. And therein lies the risk. Without a certain amount of in-area generation (refer to basics above) or significant additional transmission infrastructure supplying the area, the alternative is that continuous electrical service to customers will be at risk post-contingency, plain and simple. The ISO's concerns should focus on maintaining bulk electric system integrity, not continuity of service to end-use customers. I mean, the SFPUC and customer/public advocacy groups don't seem to give a crap about it, so why should the ISO or PG&E?

There's an old facetiously and apathetically stated utility expression: "Let 'em freeze in the dark". It's the result of years and years of utility workers' collective hard work to accomplish their prime directive of "keeping the lights on" through any and all system conditions, and the collective customers' general lack of appreciation for that effort. The first time the San Francisco Peninsula goes dark because all of the dirty nasty generators have been shut down and there's a major system event, where will the finger be pointed? Undoubtedly (and inappropriately) at PG&E and the ISO. The fault should lie directly on the shoulders of the SFPUC, the Mayor, and the misguided (on this subject anyway) advocacy groups.