Could Hydro Serve Lk.Mathews?

Could Hydro Project Serve Lake Mathews? 

Preface: Could the proposed Lake Elsinore Pump-Back energy project be recast to provide power to nearby Lake Mathews (10 miles) or Diamond Valley Lake (15-miles) instead of a costly and environmentally opposed 30-mile transmission line over the Cleveland National Forest?  Would the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California (MWD) be interested in 500 Megawatts (Mw) of power; which might free up 500 Mw of energy for the electricity grid?  MWD is planning its Central Pool Augmentation Project to pump water over the Cleveland National Forest into Orange County.  Would 500 megawatts of power serve that project? 

See map of Lake Elsinore area here: http://maps.yahoo.com/maps_result?csz=92532&mag=6

See excerpt of article from North County Times below: 

Hydro plant financing plan panned

By: JOSE CARVAJAL - Staff Writer
North County Times
Excerpt:

LAKE ELSINORE -- The nonprofit corporation that runs the state power grid informed federal energy officials recently it is opposed to financing a hydroelectric power plant proposed for the hills southwest of the lake through a subsidy from California's electricity users.

The California Independent System Operator detailed its opposition to the financing plan in a report sent last week to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, which is considering licensing the project.

On Monday, while opponents of the plant characterized the report as a blow that would likely kill the project, proponents cast it in a different light. The project is far from dead, one proponent said, and there's even a chance construction of the project will in the end be publicly financed.

"We're still hopeful," said Chris Wysocki, a spokesman for The Nevada Hydro Company, a Vista company working with the Elsinore Valley Municipal Water District to build the plant. "This is a complicated process and we're kind of working through the system, but we're still hopeful."

The project calls for water to be pumped from Lake Elsinore up the hills at night when power is less expensive and stored in a reservoir behind a dam in Decker Canyon. The water would be released toward the lake during the day to energize turbines in an underground powerhouse when electricity is in highest demand.

Linking the project to the state power grid would be a 30-mile-long, high-voltage transmission line that would run partly through the Cleveland National Forest.

While opponents see the project as a threat to the environment and to property values, proponents see it as having positive economic benefits by ensuring the lake is always full and providing up to 500 megawatts of much-needed electricity to the region.

Without public financing, the opponents said, the project would be impossible to build. A report by the commission this year estimated the project would lose about $150 million a year.

"LEAPS is dead," said project opponent Pete Weber, who also happens to be the city's elected treasurer. "No one wants to take on a $150 million loser."

Elsinore Valley Municipal Water District board member Phil Williams said that isn't the case just yet. If the project can't be publicly financed, he said, Nevada Hydro will just have to find private investors willing to take on the risk associated with this project.

If it doesn't, then the plant just won't get built, he said.

- Contact staff writer Jose Carvajal at (951) 676-4315, Ext. 2624, or jcarvajal@californian.com.