Diana Jorgenson
Portola Editor
11/11/2009

    Sierra Pacific Power, now called Nevada Energy, filed with the California Public Utilities Commission to sell its California electrical service assets to California Pacific Electric Oct. 20. Among the assets, Portola and Loyalton electrical customers will find themselves under new ownership.
    Plumas Sierra Rural Electric Cooperative would like to purchase the electrical service base in the two towns, and General Manager Bob Marshall appeared before the city council Oct. 28 to enlist the city’s support in his efforts and to encourage the city to list its primary concerns and present them to the CPUC during the comment period.
    “What’s happened is that Sierra Pacific Power Company,  15–18 months ago, put out to bid to sell the service territory of South Lake Tahoe, North Lake Tahoe, Squaw, North Star, parts of Truckee, Portola and Loyalton in order to leave the California market,” said Marshall. “The official reason is to focus on service to Nevada.”
    Unofficially, Marshall believes it doesn’t like being regulated by California for its California operations and would like to “cut it off at the state line.”
    PSREC and Truckee-Donner Public Utility District bid on portions that fit in with their service area, but Nevada Energy did not want to break the transaction into smaller purchases.
    “We were only interested in Portola and Loyalton because our co-op wraps around your communities,” Marshall told the city council members.
    The CPUC began a one-month period for public comment Oct. 15.
    Neither PSREC nor Truckee Donner PUD received notices until well after a week had gone by, and Marshall felt the CPUC had allowed insufficient time to study the 86-page sales transaction and prepare a response.
    Marshall felt the biggest concern for Portola residents was service during potential outages. The CalPECo sales proposal talked about keeping the same level of service as exists currently, Marshall said, and that service consists of one lineman stationed in Portola.
    “You used to have three or four linemen and two generators. You used to have an outage and have that crew go out, go up a pole and replace a cross arm. You don’t have that now.
    “Two winters ago, when you had the outage for two full business days, that was because Bob Vieira, good guy, working hard, could not repair the system by himself,” Marshall said.
    The document refers to a mutual aid agreement with PSREC, which Marshall said had worked very well over the years, to the benefit of both electrical companies.
    “But we are deeply concerned, and you ought to be concerned, if the idea of mutual aid means you don’t have to have a crew,” Marshall said.
    PSREC was committed to servicing its member base before it could go to the aid of other companies.
    “If there’s a big storm and their crew is stationed at North Shore, who do you think will be repaired first?” he asked. “They will get to Portola eventually, but this is the risk you take.
    “Your opportunity to influence this is this process. If you don’t protest and make your voice heard and I don’t protest on behalf of you, then exactly what is written in this document is what you get,” he said.
    He told the city it needed to decide what it wanted and present those concerns to the CPUC.
    “In our case, Plumas-Sierra would love to serve Portola and Loyalton,” he asserted. PSREC’s rates were a little more expensive, but it would keep the same rates Sierra Pacific Power customers now get for a guaranteed period of time. He hoped his co-op would, in time, decrease rates to its members to the same level.
    “What you’d get is a line crew,” he said, adding many of their employees, including linemen, lived in Portola. “We’d be here 24 hours a day on call. The lights go off, the crew goes out.”
    Marshall also recommended to the council it form an ad hoc committee with two members and authorize city staff to work with PSREC on this. Whether or not council members decided to do that, he encouraged them to contact the CPUC with their requests.
    “Whatever you want from this transaction, you need to get it in writing. Trust me, get it in writing and blessed by the CPUC before this sale completes.”
    Marshall thought the biggest issue for Loyalton might be keeping the co-gen plant open, while for Portola, reliability might be a greater concern. The two issues were, however, intertwined because the SPI co-gen plant helped to supply PSREC’s back-up power during storms.
    Marshall reported PSREC and Truckee-Donner PUD had agreed to share costs on the intervention, and the first thing they intended to do was to open it up to some real discussion.
    Marshall said he would like to see hearings conducted by the CPUC in the communities of Loyalton, Portola, Truckee and South Tahoe.
    “Sierra Pacific Power wants to sell the service territories in one piece, one transaction, one approval. We understand that. They’ve told us to talk to the new guys. We hope to meet with the new people soon, but we’re not sure they exactly ‘get’ the Sierra. They’re from Nova Scotia, a new company formed from two Canadian firms. The worry is that they simply look at this as a financial transaction with the goal to extract as much money out of the area and put back as little as they can,” said Marshall.
    Public member Maurice Willis asked if PSREC could take it over in 30 days.
    Marshall replied it was more likely to take 18 months, but if Nevada Energy were to decide to sell directly, with a purchase price proportional to what CalPECo was paying, PSREC could take it over instantly.
    Council member Dan Wilson said the city was interested in using more solar energy on City Hall and other city-owned buildings. He asked if PSREC could help with that.
    Marshall replied that, like other power companies, PSREC offered rebates and was also pushing to attract solar generators onto the Sierra Valley grid. It would also be able to offer ground source heat pumps inside the city limits for the first time. This heat source was cheaper than anything but wood, Marshall said, and he had had many requests.
    Wilson also asked why the Loyalton co-gen plant had been closed.
    Money, said Marshall. He explained fuel costs and dry tonnage costs made the cost of SPI’s electricity higher than Nevada Energy was willing to pay.
    The co-op was reluctant to meddle in a contract between two other companies: Sierra Pacific Power and Sierra Pacific Industries, but since the co-gen plant supplied PSREC with back-up power, it was impacted by the decision to close the plant.
    “If Sierra Power lets SPI’s contract go, they could then sell it to Northern California Power Agency or PG&E and both of them will pay a lot more than Sierra Pacific will,” he said.
    The city council unanimously acquiesced to both requests, appointing Dan Wilson and John Larrieu to the ad hoc committee.
    Council member William Weaver had more questions on solar power. Marshall replied that the co-op was also looking to lease solar panels to customers so customers could avoid the high capital investment. The co-op had access to lower cost borrowing through the co-op network.
    Weaver had a final question: “What happened to the power today? It went out.”
    “Here?” asked Marshall.
    “Twice,” he was told.
    Marshall shook his head. “I don’t know. Not our system …”