Utility defends transmission line at hearings
The California Public Utilities Commission hearings began in San Diego and will move to San Francisco. They are scheduled to run until early May.
SDG&E's Chief Operating Officer Michael Niggli said the line will help the utility comply with a state requirement that 20 percent of its electricity come from renewable energy sources, like solar and wind, by 2010.
The executive was pressed for details on how the transmission line will deliver on its promise of renewable energy and whether the company considered other routes.
The commission is expected to vote on the project later this year.
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German coalition backs electricity subsidy for industries
BERLIN - Germany’s three-party coalition is debating whether electricity prices for energy-intensive industries should be subsidised to prevent companies from moving production abroad.
Calls to reduce the electricity bill for big industrial producers are being made by leading politicians, who, like others in Germany, fear the country could lose its position as an industrial powerhouse as it gradually shifts away from fossil fuel-based production.
“It is in the interest of all of us that this strong industry, which we undoubtedly have in Germany, is preserved,” Lars Klingbeil, head of Germany’s leading government party SPD (S&D), told Bayrischer Rundfunk on Wednesday.
To achieve this,…