SACRAMENTO (CN) — An irrigation district sued the California Independent System Operator, which manages the state's electric power grid, claiming its plan to join a regional power group will invite the disastrous price-gouging the state saw during the 2000 electricity crisis.
The Imperial Irrigation District, which serves more than 150,000 customers in the Imperial Valley, sued the California Independent System Operator (CAISO) on June 29 in Superior Court.
The irrigation district claims CAISO's decision-making process on whether to integrate its grid with that of six other Western states has been riddled with secrecy and puts consumers at risk.
The CAISO is a nonprofit with a five-person board that oversees operations of California's electric power grid, managing 26,000 miles of power lines that carry 80 percent of the state's electricity, delivering 260 million megawatt-hours of electricity each year.
The irrigation district asks the court to compel CAISO to disclose records on proposals to merge California's electric grid with power grids owned and operated by Berkshire Hathaway Energy, owned by Warren Buffett.
Buffett's company PacifiCorp claims that if it can integrate its power grid with CAISO's, it could save California ratepayers millions of dollars.
A study jointly released by PacifiCorp and CAISO in October 2015 stated that California generates excess solar power during the day and the state's utilities could capitalize on that excess power if it integrated with other Western states.
But the irrigation district isn't buying it.
"There are powerful economic interests that have reason to misconstrue benefits of an RSO [Regional System Operator]," the complaint states. "Those interests are pushing this proposal and have paid for advancing those interests in the report that was issued by CAISO but paid for by PacifiCorp."
The irrigation district says that if Berkshire Hathaway is allowed to merge the CAISO system into a regional one, California will lose the regulatory power it has now through the ISO. "The ISO will not maintain its current relationship with the state of California in which the governor appoints the ISO board. The proposal is to join a nonprofit corporation (CAISO) with a for-profit corporation (PacifiCorp)," the complaint states.
Citing the electricity crisis of 2000-2001, the irrigation district says that's a recipe for disaster.
It wants to see the underlying assumptions and modeling that contributed to the conclusion of the joint study. The CAISO agreed to do so only if the district signed a nondisclosure agreement, the irrigation district's attorney Maria Severson said.
"Essentially, it's a gag order," Severson said in an interview. "California has strong laws that support the people's right to participate in government and to know what is going on with their ratepayer dollars.
"In this case you have a governor-appointed board attempting to merge with a for-profit company, and anything about an increase in renewables is just spin."
Steven Poncelet, a public information officer with the Truckee-Donner Public Utility District, an independent electricity provider, said he has been following the attempts to integrate the electricity grid in the Western United States for some time, and that it is "wildly complex."
While many Californians are wary of energy that comes from PacifiCorp's coal-dominant energy portfolio, Poncelet said, there are just as many in Idaho, Wyoming and Utah who are leery of California's mandates on renewable energy.