Approved in 2023. Temecula found out in 2026.
The project cleared its key planning milestones years before the community was notified. Here's the sequence — and the upcoming dates where public input still matters most.
- Happened
Precedent: CPUC rejects SDG&E's line through Anza-Borrego
In the Sunrise Powerlink decision, the CPUC finds every 500 kV route through Anza-Borrego Desert State Park “environmentally unacceptable and infeasible” (52 significant, unmitigable impacts) and forces SDG&E onto a southern reroute around the park. The new Golden Pacific crossing appears to revisit substantially the same ground.
- Happened
CAISO approves the project
The California Independent System Operator's Board of Governors approves the line in its 2022–2023 Transmission Plan, under the official name “Imperial Valley – North of SONGS” (IV-NoS). “Golden Pacific Powerlink” is SDG&E's later marketing name and does not appear in CAISO documents — track the regulatory dockets under IV-NoS. The approval comes years before any Temecula resident is told.
- Happened
CAISO picks Horizon West, not SDG&E
Through a competitive solicitation, CAISO selects Horizon West Transmission (a NextEra Energy affiliate) as the approved project sponsor — not SDG&E. SDG&E did not win this project; it arrives later by assignment.
- Happened
Horizon West hands SDG&E the line
Horizon West assigns the 500 kV transmission-line portion to SDG&E (CAISO-approved under Tariff §24.6), while keeping the new substation north of San Onofre (SONGS) for itself. So there are two proponents with two components — and SDG&E is a relatively recent arrival to the line it now fronts.
- Happened
SDG&E starts briefing the CPUC — Temecula is told nothing
On September 11, SDG&E's quarterly report to the California Public Utilities Commission's Energy Division lists “Golden Pacific Powerlink” among the applications it expects to file within two years. On September 26, the CPUC's own review agenda asks SDG&E to confirm the project is the same one CAISO calls Imperial Valley – North of SONGS, and to supply its route, cost breakdown, timeline, and whether it crosses high fire-threat areas. Both documents are public on the CPUC's website. Temecula would not hear from SDG&E for another seven months.
- Happened
The filing quarter is set — still before the City is told
SDG&E's next quarterly report to the CPUC firms the project's estimated application date from “TBD” to the fourth quarter of 2026. The schedule was settled with the regulator a month before the community learned the project existed, and months before the outreach that invited public input on the route.
- Happened
Temecula first hears about it
The City starts receiving emails from SDG&E and its hired PR firm. The project website's initial graphic did not even show the line running through Riverside County. By this point the project had been in front of the CPUC for roughly seven months.
- Happened
Towers may exceed 200 feet
On a Zoom call, SDG&E engineers indicate the steel lattice towers — already planned at 180–200 ft — may stand even taller.
- Happened
Virtual open houses
SDG&E holds online open houses as part of its early community outreach phase.
- Happened
City Council presentation
City staff present what they've gathered to the City Council (agenda item 19) and, after hours of testimony, the Council votes 5–0 to formally oppose the route and direct the City Manager to fight it — the public accounting that anchors much of this site's research.
Read the recap & watch the meeting - Happened
SDG&E publishes its alternative routes
SDG&E releases the alternative routes it will file alongside the preliminary route — only one of which bypasses Temecula. According to the City, SDG&E had emailed City staff three days earlier to say that only a single Temecula-avoiding alternative would be presented, stepping back from an earlier commitment to a robust alternatives analysis.
Only one of four bypasses Temecula - Happened
The City sends SDG&E nine pages of unanswered questions
Temecula writes to SDG&E with a consolidated list of questions it says remain unanswered or were answered vaguely — covering route selection and alternatives, where the power goes and who benefits, wildfire and emergency response, property values and insurance, tribal and cultural resources, seismic risk, wine country and the viewshed, balloon operations, and the hospital's helicopter flights. It also asks why the City was told nothing until April when SDG&E's CPUC prefiling was already underway.
- Upcoming
SDG&E's in-person open house comes to Temecula
4–7 PM at the Embassy Suites, one of a series of in-person sessions SDG&E holds ahead of its regulatory filing. The format is rotating one-on-one tables (EMF, wildfire, engineering, purpose & need, CEQA/NEPA, land & real estate, environmental resources) — no decision-makers, and no public Q&A. It is the community-engagement box SDG&E checks before it files, which is exactly why turnout is worth counting.
What it is, and what it isn't - Upcoming
CPUC filing
SDG&E files its application with the California Public Utilities Commission — expected to include the project's official cost figure. This opens the formal proceeding where public comment becomes part of the record. SDG&E's own quarterly reports to the CPUC have put this in the fourth quarter of 2026 since March.
- Upcoming
State & federal permitting
Environmental review under CEQA/NEPA and the CPUC's certification process — the window where opposition and alternative routes carry the most weight.
- Upcoming
Construction
If approved, construction would begin — 21 towers and 84 concrete footings across more than 5 miles of Temecula Creek.
- Upcoming
Targeted commercial operation
SDG&E targets a 2032 in-service date (its regulatory filings cite October 2032). Note this is a target, not the deadline: CAISO's latest required in-service date is June 1, 2034 — roughly 18–20 months later. That gap is the schedule slack the opposition aims to consume through lawful delay.