Plans being drawn up for another summer without San Onofre

The organization responsible for overseeing California’s power grid is developing plans to meet next summer’s electricity needs in Southern California if the San Onofre nuclear plant remains offline, according to the Los Angeles Times.

The plant’s outage has already stretched for more than seven months, forcing energy officials to replace its 2200 megawatts of power -- enough to power about 1.4 million homes -- in the heat of the summer.

Staffers from the California Independent System Operator presented a set of recommendations to their board of governors Thursday, in case the outage extends another year.

The plant was shuttered because of unexpected wear on tubes carrying radioactive water in its four recently replaced steam generators.

Plant operator Southern California Edison plans to submit a restart plan for one of the two reactor units by early October, but the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission would need to review and sign off on the plan, a process that may take months, NRC Chairwoman Allison Macfarlane told a Senate committee this week.

The plant’s second reactor, where the tube damage was worse, will remain out of commission indefinitely.

Officials scrambled to put a contingency plan in place to get Southern California through the summer without San Onofre. A key part of that plan -- firing up two retired generating units at a natural gas plant in Huntington Beach -- will not be available next summer, because their air emission credits will transfer to another plant after October, but ISO officials hope that they can put the units to use in another way.

In addition to generating power, San Onofre also provides “voltage support,” facilitating the movement of power through the grid, and allowing for importation of more power into the region.

Under the ISO’s plan, the Huntington Beach units would be converted into synchronous condensers, which, instead of generating power, help to push power through the grid. The ISO board voted to designate the Huntington Beach units as necessary for reliability in 2013.

Meanwhile, the NRC has scheduled a public meeting on the issues at San Onofre for Oct. 9. The meeting will be held at the St. Regis Monarch Beach Hotel in Dana Point, beginning at 6 p.m.

The meeting will consist of a round-table discussion followed by a question and answer session.

This story was reported by Times Staff Writer Abby Sewell.