Southern California Edison

Southern California Edison, the state's No. 2 utility, will default on principal payments on $200 million of six-year notes coming due Friday, company executives said. The unit of Rosemead-based Edison International is struggling under more than $5.4 billion of losses incurred paying soaring power costs it couldn't pass on to customers. Edison has defaulted on more than $490 million of commercial paper this year and on $200 million of five-year notes that came due on Jan. 16.

The problems at the San Onofre nuclear power plant are serious enough that the facility will not be able to operate at full capacity when it reopens, perhaps as early as June. The announcement comes as officials continue to investigate problems in the reactors that have forced the plant to remain shut for three months, the longest closure in San Onofre's history. Southern California Edison estimated that the company's cost for inspections and repairs at the plant would be between $55 million and $65 million.

Electricity rate relief is on the horizon for customers of Southern California Edison. The Rosemead-based utility will file for a rate decrease this week with the California Public Utilities Commission to take effect after Edison has paid power debts left over from the energy crisis, which is expected about midyear, an Edison spokesman said Wednesday.

Southern California Edison announced Friday that it will collaborate with the Scripps Institution of Oceanography on seismic studies looking at offshore faults near the San Onofre nuclear plant, beginning later this year. Edison requested approval last year from the California Public Utilities Commission to recover $64 million from ratepayers for seismic studies that will help to determine the future of the plant. Caroline McAndrews, Edison's director of nuclear strategic projects, said the collaboration with Scripps will account for about half of that.

A fire at a Southern California Edison substation in Acton burned several hours Friday, fueled by thousands of gallons of mineral oil used to insulate transformers. An internal mechanical failure sparked the blaze about 6:30 p.m. at the manned substation, said Edison spokesman Steve Conroy. Flames were visible 10 miles away in Palmdale. County Fire Capt. Mark Savage said about 75 firefighters used foam to quell the blaze near Angeles Forest Highway and Hillside Drive. No injuries were reported.

In the largest commitment of private funds to rebuild Los Angeles since the city suffered devastating riots two weeks ago, Southern California Edison today will announce a $35-million job training and economic development plan to help the affected communities. "This is by far the largest commitment we have ever made to an effort of this kind," said Edison Chairman John E. Bryson, noting that the expenditure will be more than double the company's total philanthropic budget this year.

T.M. McDaniel Jr., 91, former president of Southern California Edison, died July 10 at a retirement home in Aliso Viejo, the utility announced. McDaniel was president of Southern California Edison from 1968 to 1978 and retired at age 62. He began his career with the utility in 1956 as the executive in charge of organization and procedures. He served as vice president for sales and commercial programs, executive vice president and a director before he was named president.

While most new attractions at theme parks are measured in the millions of dollars these days, the Thomas A. Edison Inventors Workshop unveiled Thursday at Knott's Berry Farm is a bit of an oddity. Built for $20,000--the cost of materials--by Southern California Edison volunteers and retirees, it is in a shack at Camp Snoopy that used to house a computer lab. It's a joint project between Knott's and the utility, which hoped to create an attraction that would spark student interest in science.

A Southern California Edison helicopter carrying three people crashed in the ocean off Huntington Beach on Friday, and there were no signs of survivors. Search aircraft located a man's body about 12:15 p.m. floating face down near wreckage that was confirmed to be from the missing helicopter. The Coast Guard recovered the wreckage and an uninflated raft about three miles from the Huntington Beach Pier, but the body sank in deep water before it could be retrieved, said Lt. Carol Stearns, U.S.

Ade Eitner got quite a shock from his small manufacturing company's June electric bill, which took a 55% jump from the previous month and has stayed in the same lofty neighborhood. Village Covenant Church in Azusa saw a doubling of its electric bills. "Our bills have never, ever been this high," said Gene Palmer, a member of Village Covenant's church council. "It's very difficult."

The extended closure of the San Onofre nuclear plant due to safety concerns has led some to speculate — or hope — that the plant will be shuttered for good, but the chief nuclear officer for plant operator Southern California Edison said he doesn't believe the problems signal the plant's demise. "There's nothing I'm aware of today that would make me conclude that," Southern California Edison Senior Vice President Pete Dietrich said in a telephone interview Monday, speaking to The Times for the first time since the plant was forced to close.

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, citing serious concerns about equipment failures at the San Onofre nuclear power plant, has prohibited Southern California Edison from restarting the plant until the problems are thoroughly understood and fixed. The plant has been shut down for two months, the longest in San Onofre's history, after a tube leak in one of the plant's steam generators released a small amount of radioactive steam. Since then, unusual wear has been found on hundreds of tubes that carry radioactive water.

State regulators on Wednesday slammed Southern California Edison for outages that left nearly a quarter of a million customers without power —- some for more than a week — during a windstorm late last year. In a preliminary report, the California Public Utilities Commission concluded that some equipment, including 21 wooden poles and 17 cables used to stabilize them, did not meet safety standards. Regulators also criticized Edison for what they said was a slow response to restore power to residents and businesses.

Southern California Edison and two federal agencies said Friday they are only weeks away from resolving a years-long disagreement over connecting renewable energy projects to the grid. The parties reached a preliminary agreement one week after Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) sent a letter to Edison urging the utility to end an impasse that had frustrated the government because solar projects were sitting idle long after they had been built. Utilities elsewhere in California have signed similar interconnection agreements with few problems or delays.

Sen. Barbara Boxer on Thursday urged Southern California Edison to expedite interconnection agreements with national parks and forests, where renewable energy projects have been sitting idle for years while federal agencies wrangle with the utility. In a letter to SCE President Ronald L. Litzinger, Boxer chastised the utility for delaying projects that were intended to reduce electric bills at national park and forest facilities. The letter was in response to a Times story this week that detailed a number of renewable projects caught in the impasse.

Millions of dollars in renewable energy projects intended to provide power to facilities in California's national parks and forests are sitting idle because of a years-long squabble with Southern California Edison. A new $800,000 solar project at Death Valley National Park, photovoltaic panels at the state-of-the art visitors center at Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area and a solar power system at the U.S. Forest Service's new facility at Mono Lake are among dozens of taxpayer-funded projects in Southern California on hold as the federal agencies try to hash out an agreement with SCE to tie the projects to the state's electrical grid.

Despite objections from environmentalists, the Board of Supervisors Tuesday approved an agreement that virtually removes the county's opposition to the proposed merger of Southern California Edison and San Diego's chief power utility. Three weeks ago, the supervisors had threatened to battle the merger between Edison and San Diego Gas & Electric unless serious flaws in a state study of the deal were corrected. In a letter to the state Public Utilities Commission, board Chairwoman Madge L.

City officials in Oxnard and Simi Valley said Wednesday that they remain skeptical about promises that a proposed merger of Southern California Edison and San Diego Gas & Electric will not increase air pollution in their areas of the county. The officials said they are not satisfied with an agreement that Edison struck with the county to reduce certain pollutants by specified percentages, more than compensating for increases expected as a result of the merger.

At first, the darkness was an adventure. The fireplace was set aglow, the board games came out, and Candy Weber and her family curled up on their crimson couch in the living room, trying to keep warm. But by the seventh day of the power outage triggered by last week's windstorm, camp-style living had lost its luster in one San Marino neighborhood, where more than 70 families remained without electricity for heat and other necessities Wednesday morning. "When you wake up in the morning and it's so cold you can see your breath," Weber said, "you don't want to get up. You don't want to do anything.