(December 10, 2010) Groundbreaking for the 117-mile Sunrise Powerlink transmission line took place yesterday in Southern California. Spanning from Imperial County to San Diego, the 500-kilovolt transmission line will have the capacity to deliver enough clean energy to power 650,000 homes, and is expected to create approximately 2,000 direct jobs.

For the past three years, the California Chamber of Commerce has been actively advocating for approval of this project through public education efforts and testimony before regulatory bodies, including the California State Park and Recreation Commission, California Public Utilities Commission and the U.S. Department of Energy.

The Sunrise Powerlink transmission line would carry solar energy from solar collectors in the desert to San Diego.

The construction of the Sunrise Powerlink transmission line will help facilitate the development of renewable energy projects such as solar, wind and geothermal located in the Imperial Valley by providing a new transmission outlet to move the electricity produced from these projects to population centers. The development of new renewable energy projects will create jobs and economic growth in the Imperial Valley. In fact, San Diego Gas & Electric estimates the Sunrise Powerlink will create 400 to 500 direct construction jobs and an additional 1,500 permanent jobs for ongoing maintenance and operation of the transmission line.  

The project underwent a five-year environmental review and permitting process and has received approval by the California Public Utilities Commission, the Bureau of Land Management in the U.S. Department of the Interior and the U.S. Forest Service in the U.S. Department of Agriculture. With project construction beginning this month, the line will begin service in 2012.

Forecasts show that by later this year, the San Diego region will demand more power than can be generated locally or imported over existing transmission lines. Until recently, no new power plants has been built in San Diego for nearly 50 years, and the last new transmission line like the Sunrise Powerlink was built in 1983. Since that time, the demand for energy has doubled — straining existing infrastructure to the limit.