Gas-Fired Generating Plants as Mitigation for Contingencies Threatening Southern California Electric Reliability

The staffs of the California Energy Commission (Energy Commission), California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC), California Independent System Operator (California ISO) and California Air Resources Board (ARB) are working together to track resource development and electricity demand, and are identifying contingency mitigation options, should they be required, to assure electric system reliability in Southern California. Like most reliability assessments, there are risks (contingencies) and solutions (mitigation measures). The mitigation measures developed in the plan are designed to guard against the contingencies of lesser savings from preferred resource development, delays or termination of planned generation additions, or delays or poorer performance than planned of ISO-approved transmission system upgrades. This paper is a work in progress for one part of the overall contingency project. It identifies three options for developing a generating project that could serve as mitigation for a contingency that threatens reliability, and provides a preliminary assessment of the advantages and disadvantages of each option. The basic idea is to have a generating project designed, partly or fully permitted, and ready to be developed if projections for the total amount of resource capacity fall short of local capacity requirements in one or more of the local capacity areas of Southern California.