DESCRIPTION

The Stockton Area consists of all or portions of Amador, Calavaras, Tuolumne, San Joaquin, and Stanislaus Counties. The heavily populated areas include Lodi and Stockton. The bulk transmission system in this area resembles a hub and spoke configuration with the Bellota 230kV bus as the hub. Hydro generation from the Sierra foothills flows into Bellota on various 230kV lines and flows to Sacramento and the Bay Area. Several substations (e.g., Tesla 230kV serving the Bay Area, Rio Oso 230kV, and Gregg 230kV serving the Fresno Area) are connected to the backbone 230kV system, which serve Stockton Area load. The Stockton transmission system consists of a robust 60kV system centered around downtown Stockton, and 115kV and 230kV systems that help support the 60kV loads.

This area has about 1530MW of internal generation primarily from hydro generators, cogeneration, with the rest from thermal and wind sources. QFs can provide about another 360MW. The summer peak load is about 1600MW. Projected load growth in the area for the next few years is about 40MW per year on average.