Dive Brief:
- Despite the drought in California, Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E) expects to have enough to power to meet its needs this year, company officials said during an earnings conference call.
- PG&E intends to keep trying to build a 586-MW natural gas-fired power plant in Oakley, Calif., even though an appeals court last week rejected for the second time the California Public Utilities Commission approval of the project.
- PG&E expects to spend $14 billion to $18 billion in capital expenditures this year through 2016.
Dive Insight:
PG&E will likely use its hydro assets sparingly during the summer. “What it really means to us is just that we'll only be able to use our current hydro resources probably during high peak times and some emergency times,” Christopher Johns, PG&E president said. “In our territory, we still look like we're pretty good. Our nuclear facilities are running well and all other resources are available to us.”
PG&E plans to keep plugging away at its Oakley gas-fired project, which would be built by a third party and then sold to the utility. “We're working with our counterparty right now to take a look and see how we're going to re-approach the regulatory process,” Johns said. “We need to address what the courts ruled was lack of evidence around the need, and so we're going to work with our counterparty to try to put the best case we can together to be able to address what the court's concerns were.”