Dozens of residents huddled over poster boards at an open house at the Fallbrook Community Center Tuesday evening.
The signs mapped the 500-kilovolt line San Diego Gas and Electric (SDG&E) wants to build. Its proposed 145-mile route would start at the utility’s Imperial Valley substation and run above ground to the border of Orange and San Diego counties near the San Onofre Generating Station.
An unspecified mileage would run through the northwestern corner Fallbrook, near where Carol Gibson lives.
Over the weekend, she became the owner of her first electric vehicle and “I’ll be putting in solar panels (at home) in two months to reduce my SDG&E bill,” she said.
The 30-year resident said she understands the need for more power.
“We have battery phones, we have other kinds of battery things, but most of it comes through the circuitry of SDG&E,” said Gibson. “Obviously, we need it. How we get it is another question.”
California’s peak demand is expected to double by 2045, driven largely by electric vehicle sales, data centers and the replacement of gas-powered systems with electric ones, according to state regulators.
SDG&E officials have said the Powerlink line would help the state meet that growing demand.
“Transmission lines are like freeways,” said Alex Welling, the utility’s spokesperson. “We need those large corridors to move large amounts of energy all at once into those load centers. We need a way to move that energy and that’s where transmission lines come in.”
Harrison Littrell, who attended the open house, believes the proposed transmission line would put communities like his at greater risk of wildfires. He lives in Warner Springs, an unincorporated area in north San Diego County. Cal Fire considers it a “Very High Fire Hazard Severity Zone.”
“I don’t even support pushing it onto another community,” he said, adding that he has evacuated three times due to wildfires. “This powerlink would come in and put 200-foot towers and put our community at fire risk, risk of eminent domain, risk of higher insurance costs and would detriment a lot of our historical areas and cultural areas that are important to the Native Americans.”
In July, a wildfire charred nearly 700 acres near Warner Springs and where the transmission line would run toward Palomar Mountain. A coalition against the project, called Save Warner Springs, took to social media earlier this month expressing their concerns about how the line might’ve affected firefighting efforts.
Welling said wildfire concerns are top of mind for SDG&E.
“For over 18 years, we have been recognized as a national leader in wildfire mitigation, everything from wood-to-steel conversions, upgrading the conductors so they don’t slap into each other, using AI for weather forecasting,” he said. “We know how to operate our equipment in the safest, most responsible way possible.”
Littrell said his community and others that fall within the proposed route are pushing for alternatives to the Powerlink, such as undergrounding lines or localizing power.
“Solar structures over parking lots and, you know, utilize the space better,” he said. “They were pushing for localized power. So you don't need to run transmission freeways across, you know, dangerous fire zones.”
Golden Pacific Powerlink was born from a transmission plan for 2022 and 2023 that the California Independent System Operator developed. CAISO manages the power grid for about 80% of the state.
According to the plan, it’s one of 45 transmission projects, ranging in projected costs from $4 million to $2.3 billion, needed to meet a growing electricity demand and help the state achieve its ambitious carbon reduction goals.
The project has a long way to go before being considered by state regulators. Welling said regulators will also examine wildfire and other environmental risks.
“They're going to be looking at every single aspect of this project, and they're going to weigh it against the feedback from the communities as well,” he said.
If approved by regulators, construction could begin in 2029 and service would commence in 2032, according to SDG&E.
SDG&E is hosting two more open houses: one at El Centro Community Center in Imperial Valley from 4-7 p.m. on Oct. 13 and the other at the Borrego Springs Resort in Anza Borrego at the same time on Oct. 14.
