Economy

SDG&E Adds Geothermal To Energy Mix

By Ed Joyce / Reporter

Published March 31, 2010 at 11:10 AM PDT

This story was published more than 14 years ago.

San Diego Gas & Electric is buying some renewable energy from a geothermal plant in Northern California. The new agreement moves the utility closer to meeting a state renewable energy mandate.

SDG&E signed a four-year power-purchase agreement with Calpine Energy Services to get 25 megawatts of geothermal energy from the Calpine Geysers facility in Northern California.

The Geysers facility is a complex of 15 geothermal power plants, drawing steam from more than 330 wells, located in mountains about 70 miles north of San Francisco.

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The Geysers is the largest geothermal power producing site in the world.

Jennifer Briscoe with SDG&E parent company Sempra Energy, said the geothermal agreement will increase SDG&E's portfolio of clean power resources to approximately 14 percent ... And get the utility closer to meeting the state's 20-percent renewable mandate.

"We expect to definitely meet the 20 percent by 2010, and will do so with banked renewable energy from years past as well," said Briscoe.

Briscoe said under the agreement, the geothermal facility will produce enough "green" power for more than 15,000 households.

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Ed Joyce was the environment reporter and afternoon news anchor for KPBS-FM. Before joining KPBS, he worked as an editor/columnist with Copley News Service in San Diego. Ed has an extensive background in newspaper, radio, web and TV journalism. After graduating with a B.A. in Communications from the University of Washington in Seattle, Ed began a career in broadcast journalism. His work has included stints in public broadcasting, commercial broadcasting and education -- working as an affiliate professor of communication and reporter at the University of Idaho and Washington State University in Pullman, Wash. During the past 20 years he has worked in radio, TV and print as a news reporter, anchor, writer, editor and producer. Along the way he has won numerous awards for general news reporting, newswriting, feature and issue reporting and breaking news reporting from The Associated Press, The Society of Professional Journalists, San Diego Press Club and other organizations. During the mid-1990s, while working for Oregon Public Broadcasting, he was a frequent contributor to National Public Radio, including a feature report on the memorial service for 14 U.S. Forest Service "hotshots" who died fighting a wildfire in Colorado (the crew was based in a central Oregon town). He’s also filed reports with Marketplace, KQED’s California Report and Climate Watch and with national and regional networks throughout the United States. At KPBS, Ed continues his contributions to National Public Radio and other national and regional news organizations. He has won awards from the Society of Professional Journalists and San Diego Press Club for his environmental reporting at KPBS-FM-TV and for producing and anchoring radio newscasts. In 2007 he was selected a National Press Foundation fellow for Understanding Violent Weather II program. The seminars were held at the National Weather Center in Norman, Okla. In 2008 he spoke at a UC San Diego conference on U.S. National Security as part of the school’s Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation. Ed led a discussion with the 18 foreign government officials and academics about the political debate over climate change. In 2010, Ed was elected to a three-year term on the board of the San Diego Press Club.

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