Southern California Edison

Industry, government and university representatives are coming to UCI Tuesday for a day-long research symposium focusing on generating and distributing power in a cleaner more sustainable way. Representatives of Southern California Edison, General Electric, Google, IBM, Cisco and the California Energy Commission will present at the Southern California Smart Grid Research Symposium. Billions of dollars are earmarked for energy research in the stimulus bill, and industry and government leaders are looking for projects to utilize it. The event runs from 8:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. in the California Institute for Telecommunications and Information Technology Building.

A Newport Beach neighborhood has been without power for nearly three days as Southern California Edison scrambles to get the power back on, Edison representatives said. At 7 p.m. Sunday, 42 Edison customers between Bedford and Cornwall Lanes lost power, Edison spokesman Paul Klein said. “They have been out of power for that long. They are a high priority for us,” Klein said. But he couldn’t say when power will be restored. The cause of the outage has not been determined but is most likely due to overuse of air conditioners during the heat wave, Klein said.

A Southern California Edison employee is recovering from a severe burn to his hand in a Los Angeles County hospital burn center, a day after he was injured at a Costa Mesa business, company officials said. The company declined to identify the employee, but said he is a trouble-shooter for the company who fixes problems for customers at all times, day or night. The Edison employee was called to a dental office at 2000 Harbor Blvd. in Costa Mesa on Wednesday afternoon to fix an electrical problem, said company spokesman Steve Conroy.

June Casagrande NEWPORT BEACH -- Just three weeks after city crews trimmed about 40 eucalyptus trees along Santa Ana Avenue, staffers were alarmed to see that someone had given the trees another, far more dramatic buzz cut. It turns out Southern California Edison sent in its tree-trimming contractors last week to cut the limbs clear of power lines that run along the avenue. "They should have contacted city staff and alerted us ahead of time," said John Conway, the city's urban forester, who oversees tree-trimming schedules for city trees.

UCI has won a statewide award for its efforts to reduce greenhouse emissions and conserve energy and water. UCI was one of five applicants out of hundreds to earn “Best Overall” recognition in the state “Flex Your Power” campaign’s annual award. Those winners were picked by representatives of the California Public Utilities Commission, California Energy Commission, League of California Council, Southern California Edison and other public and private groups.

PUBLIC SAFETY Costa Mesans lose power after outage An underground transformer outside Triangle Square Tuesday afternoon paralyzed downtown businesses and triggering power outages in the area. No one was hurt in the incident that happened at about 3:20 p.m. in the 1800 block of Newport Boulevard, but more than 2,000 customers lost power. Service was restored in an hour to all but 22 customers, who had to wait until the next morning. However, most businesses in Triangle Square closed for rest of the day. Witnesses said they saw a concrete grill cover blow up and shatter and then saw yellow smoke spewing from the damaged vault.

Paul Clinton NEWPORT-MESA -- To help residents brace for rolling blackouts, Southern California Edison is implementing a public notification program that will dispel the mystery about which neighborhoods will be hit. Edison unveiled the plan, which includes a revamped Web site, on Thursday. Edison customers, a group that includes most of Southern California, can check which specific neighborhoods are set to be blacked out via the Edison Web site (http://www.

Deirdre Newman After seeing their monthly bills jump an average of $1.44 in July, residents will now see their bills dip by about 32 cents a month. A domino effect enabled the Mesa Consolidated Water District to reduce its rates from 15 cents per billing unit to 13 cents per billing unit. The district's board of directors approved the reduction last week, based on Southern California Edison reducing its electric rates in August. "We're very happy that we can pass these savings along to our customers," said Amanda Gavin, the district's public information coordinator.

Deirdre Newman A two-year effort to place utility lines underground on the Westside culminated Tuesday with the steady hands of a Southern California Edison crew and the buzz of a chainsaw. The crew delicately removed a 50-foot utility pole on Placentia Avenue, across from the Mesa Consolidated Water District office. The pole is the last of about 60 that Southern California Edison either wholly or partially owns in the 1 1/2-mile project area, which also includes 19th Street, 20th Street and Pomona Avenue.

Balboa Island has always been and continues to be a harmonious community of civic-minded citizens and caring neighbors with a genuine ?live and let live? philosophy ? one big happy family. The current turmoil created by the initiative to put utilities underground is out of character for this wonderful community and reflective of the general environment of mistrust of all politicians, political process and the financial community at large. If one is permitted to cut through the fog of exaggerated and self-serving claims and counter claims on both sides of the issue, particularly relating to safety, the bottom line very simply stated is this: A few years ago, when the economy was booming, the homeowners of Balboa Island were polled to see if they would be interested in putting the unsightly utilities underground for what we now know was a ?

NEWPORT BEACH — About 250 Southern California Edison customers along the Peninsula lost power Tuesday morning after a transformer failed, officials said. Workers with SCE were working to isolate the outage and restore power to residents in the area, said Vanessa McGrady, spokeswoman for SCE. The power outage first occurred at 4:22 a.m., affecting nearly 3,380 customers in the area, McGrady said. She said power was restored at 1:36 p.m. Workers were able to isolate the problem and restore power to most residents and businesses along West 17th Street on the north, Oceanfront on the south, the Balboa Pavilion area on the east and Monrovia Avenue on the west.

Costa Mesa and Newport Beach homeowners are seeing fractional increases in their monthly energy bills to pay for the new Smart electric meters, but most say it's a small price to pay for energy efficiency. The $1.6 billion SmartConnect program was implemented by Southern California Edison earlier this year. Workers have been installing the new electric meters not only in Newport-Mesa, but throughout Orange and Los Angeles counties. The goal is to have five million new Smart meters, which have the capacity to be read wirelessly and provide hourly data, installed in homes and small businesses throughout SCE's 50,000-square-mile territory.

A Southern California Edison employee is recovering from a severe burn to his hand in a Los Angeles County hospital burn center, a day after he was injured at a Costa Mesa business, company officials said. The company declined to identify the employee, but said he is a trouble-shooter for the company who fixes problems for customers at all times, day or night. The Edison employee was called to a dental office at 2000 Harbor Blvd. in Costa Mesa on Wednesday afternoon to fix an electrical problem, said company spokesman Steve Conroy.

Thousands of Newport-Mesa residents were temporarily without electricity late Tuesday and early Wednesday when an overnight thunderstorm shook electrical transformers and caused some intersection signals to malfunction. By Wednesday afternoon, only a few hundred throughout Orange County were left without power, and all of it was expected to be restored by nightfall, according to representatives from Southern California Edison. But overnight, the situation was worse. Edison officials had told police up to 3,000 Newport Beach residents lost electricity, police said.

Industry, government and university representatives are coming to UCI Tuesday for a day-long research symposium focusing on generating and distributing power in a cleaner more sustainable way. Representatives of Southern California Edison, General Electric, Google, IBM, Cisco and the California Energy Commission will present at the Southern California Smart Grid Research Symposium. Billions of dollars are earmarked for energy research in the stimulus bill, and industry and government leaders are looking for projects to utilize it. The event runs from 8:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. in the California Institute for Telecommunications and Information Technology Building.

Balboa Island has always been and continues to be a harmonious community of civic-minded citizens and caring neighbors with a genuine ?live and let live? philosophy ? one big happy family. The current turmoil created by the initiative to put utilities underground is out of character for this wonderful community and reflective of the general environment of mistrust of all politicians, political process and the financial community at large. If one is permitted to cut through the fog of exaggerated and self-serving claims and counter claims on both sides of the issue, particularly relating to safety, the bottom line very simply stated is this: A few years ago, when the economy was booming, the homeowners of Balboa Island were polled to see if they would be interested in putting the unsightly utilities underground for what we now know was a ?

UCI has won a statewide award for its efforts to reduce greenhouse emissions and conserve energy and water. UCI was one of five applicants out of hundreds to earn “Best Overall” recognition in the state “Flex Your Power” campaign’s annual award. Those winners were picked by representatives of the California Public Utilities Commission, California Energy Commission, League of California Council, Southern California Edison and other public and private groups.

A Newport Beach neighborhood has been without power for nearly three days as Southern California Edison scrambles to get the power back on, Edison representatives said. At 7 p.m. Sunday, 42 Edison customers between Bedford and Cornwall Lanes lost power, Edison spokesman Paul Klein said. “They have been out of power for that long. They are a high priority for us,” Klein said. But he couldn’t say when power will be restored. The cause of the outage has not been determined but is most likely due to overuse of air conditioners during the heat wave, Klein said.

JOSEPH N. BELL Here are some of the things I discovered in the piles of unread newspapers awaiting me when I returned from a holiday trip: First, on the high side, just a few weeks after my daughter, Patt, and I bought a 20-game package to Angel games in the upcoming baseball season, the Angels' new owner, Arte Moreno, thanked us by acquiring outfielder Vladimir Guerrero, certainly one of the best hitters in the...

Deirdre Newman A two-year effort to place utility lines underground on the Westside culminated Tuesday with the steady hands of a Southern California Edison crew and the buzz of a chainsaw. The crew delicately removed a 50-foot utility pole on Placentia Avenue, across from the Mesa Consolidated Water District office. The pole is the last of about 60 that Southern California Edison either wholly or partially owns in the 1 1/2-mile project area, which also includes 19th Street, 20th Street and Pomona Avenue.