2. Background

SCE provides retail electric service to customers in fifteen counties in Southern California.  The Project will create a new substation with associated subtransmission lines and control equipment to increase the capacity and reliability of the Rector System serving Visalia and Northern Tulare County (the Electrical Needs Area). The forecasted peak demand for the Electrical Needs Area is expected to exceed the maximum capacity for the Rector System by 2008.

In addition, the length of distribution lines built to serve the Electrical Needs Area present reliability concerns due to lags in shifting excess load between lines and between substations. Lines that were sufficient to serve the Electrical Needs area while it was in a more rural condition will no longer serve the needs of the increasingly densely-populated area.