How San Diego Scored a $1.9B Solar, Wind Power Line

The vote came as utilities nationwide are under pressure to rely less on coal and natural gas to fire their plants, the biggest source of carbon dioxide emissions in the U.S.

California's three investor-owned utilities are required to get 20 percent of power from renewables by the end of 2010, and Schwarzenegger set a target of 33 percent by 2020. SDG&E is the biggest laggard, getting only about 6 percent from renewables.

SDG&E would build the power line but buy the juice from a host of generating companies. The most ambitious generation project relies on a commercially untested technology for a gigantic solar plant.

Stirling Energy Systems Inc., a Phoenix startup, wants to build thousands of solar dishes, each four stories tall about 100 miles east of San Diego. The dishes, which collect sunlight to heat gas and drive the cylinders of an engine, have been tested on a small scale but would now need to move to mass production.

The PUC's vote is unlikely to be the final word.

A power line opponent, Michael Shames of Utility Consumers' Action Network, said before the vote that the consumer advocacy group would ask a state court to block construction.