By Rebecca Bowe
The California Independent System Operator (ISO), a quasi-governmental body that oversees the state’s electric grid, held a hearing about San Francisco’s Mirant Potrero Power Plant on Friday to decide whether the polluting facility should be required to stay in operation through next year.
The hearing came about a month after City Attorney Dennis Herrera struck a deal with Mirant to shutter the entire plant by the end of 2010. That agreement will only stick if the ISO is willing to release the plant from a Reliability Must Run (RMR) contract, which has kept it in operation for decades despite opposition from San Francisco elected officials.
In short, the ISO indicated that it would be willing to release Unit 3 — which represents the lion’s share of the power plant’s emissions — from the RMR contract by spring of 2010, but it still hasn’t budged on the smaller, diesel-fired units known as 4, 5, and 6.
We received this detailed update from Joshua Arce, executive director of the Brightline Defense Project, who attended the hearing.
I would summarize by saying that environmental and community groups saw movement from ISO, but we think they can do better.