Fast Track Peaking Units

 "here today"

"gone tomorrow"

State Energy Commission Accepts 5 "Peaking" Units for 'Fast Track' Licensing Process

CEC News Release, Oct 31, 2000
With a unanimous vote, the California Energy Commission decided that five peaking projects were "data adquate." and could be considered for a fast track review. Three of the five projects are designed to operate for just three years. The other two may be converted to combined cycle operation at the end of the three years. All five projects would be owned and operated by Calpine. These are "peaking" units which are expected to operate around 12 hours per day, 5 days per week, June - October. In order to be considered for fast track, the proposals had to be judged "data adequate" by October 31, 2000. The review process is four months, and the units would be targeted to be on-line before August 1, 2001. The five Calpine projects would provide a total of 448 MW:

 91.2 MW

Four trailer-mounted simple cycle gas fired turbines
in Brisbane, San Mateo County

 88.0 MW

 Two simple cycle gas fired turbines in the City of Santa Clara

 91.2 MW

 Four trailer mounted simple cycle gas fired turbines
in the City of San Mateo.

 91.2 MW

  Four trailer mounted simple cycle gas fired turbinesin the City of Fremont.

 86.4 MW

Two simple gas fired turbines near Oakdale
in Stanislaus County

A previous project (a 51 MW simple cycle plant near the San Francisco Airport) had qualified for expedited review on October 25, 2000. It would be owned by El Paso Merchant Energy.

CEC news releases can be downloaded from www.energy.ca.gov/releases.

Attempt to Spur Construction
of Power Plants Finds Few Takers

San Diego Union, Jan 8, 2001
A bill (AB 970) signed in early September to "fast track" the complicated approval process for urgently needed power plants has drawn no applicants. But the state Energy Commission says it has received e-mail from firms that plan to seek approval under the new six-month process for three plants that would produce a modest 590 megawatts.....

Another part of the legislation created a four-month approval process for "peaker" power plants.....

But only one small peaker in the San Francisco Bay Area, a 51 MW unit being built by El Paso Merchant Energy, is going through the process. Calpine of San Jose withdrew fast-track applications for six peakers producing more than 500 MW.