New Underground Line to Boost Grid

A new seven-mile underground power line has been picked for San Jose and Santa Clara as South Bay electricity demand climbs. (eastbaytimes.com) The California Independent System Operator selected LS Power Grid California to develop the 230-kilovolt line linking Pacific Gas and Electric’s San José B substation in downtown San Jose with Silicon Valley Power’s Northern Receiving Station at 4949 Centennial Boulevard in Santa Clara. LS Power said the line is expected to cost up to $200 million and target service by June 2030. (lspower.com) CAISO said it chose LS Power after a competitive process with five qualified proposals. LS Power said it will finance, build, own, operate and maintain the line with Pacific Gas and Electric handling initial operations. (lspower.com) Transmission lines are the grid’s long-distance highways, moving large blocks of electricity between substations that then feed neighborhoods, offices and factories. CAISO’s 2024-2025 transmission plan said the Bay Area needs more of that backbone as electrification and load growth accelerate. (caiso.com) In San Jose, the load forecast changed fast enough that city officials pressed CAISO in November 2024 to add another 1,000-megawatt line from San José B to Santa Clara’s Northern Receiving Station for 2030 service. The city said updated studies showed “significant investment in electrical capacity and redundancy” was needed in the San Jose area. (caiso.com) The immediate driver is large new power requests, especially from data centers, electric vehicles and building electrification. San José Clean Energy said the city and PG&E have been planning for nearly 2 gigawatts of new electricity demand from planned and proposed data centers by 2028. (sanjosecleanenergy.org) This line is also a follow-on to two other South Bay transmission projects already in the pipeline. LS Power said its Power Santa Clara Valley and Power the South Bay projects are both expected online in 2028, and the new San Jose–Santa Clara line builds on that work. (lspower.com) Those earlier projects are still moving through California Public Utilities Commission review. CPUC records show Power Santa Clara Valley was filed on April 29, 2024, and Power the South Bay was filed on May 17, 2024, with both applications later amended after CAISO changed project scopes in November 2024. (cpuc.ca.gov, cpuc.ca.gov) The larger planning backdrop is statewide, not just local. CAISO’s board approved a 31-project transmission plan on May 22, 2025, with 28 reliability projects aimed largely at rising electrification demand, especially in the Greater San Francisco Bay Area. (publicpower.org) The next phase is permitting and environmental review before construction can start. If the approvals stay on schedule, the new underground link is supposed to give San Jose and Santa Clara another path for power by 2030. (lspower.com)