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How do you turn water into light?
A flip of the switch and the light comes on. It seems instantaneous,
but over 250 miles away
at the Big Creek hydroelectric system, the electricity that powers this light bulb
is being generated and the journey of power has just begun.
The journey begins here at Huntington Lake. One of six major reservoirs in the Big Creek System,
it has over 88,000 acre-feet of capacity.
Gravity now goes to work, pulling water from the lake
down 2,100 feet into Big Creek Powerhouse One.
At full power, 5,000 pounds of pressure flow through each of the four generators
in Big Creek Powerhouse One. This single Powerhouse can produce over 60 megawatts of power
and the Big Creek hydroelectric system in total produces over 1,000 megawatts,
enough to power 800,000 homes on the grid.
The electricity now makes its way down the Sierra Nevada mountains.
Known as the freeways of the electrical system these transmission lines move
large amounts of electricity
over long distances from remote generating stations to population centers.
At 220 kilovolts, 1,000 times higher than the voltage used to power a residential home,
the electricity travels 120,000 miles per second
and makes its first stop, Rector Substation, almost instantaneously.
At Rector, the electricity from Big Creek splits into a lower voltage,
feeding multiple distribution substations that serve the San Joaquin Valley
and is boosted back up to 220 kilovolts
for another 140 mile journey into Los Angeles.
Leaving Rector Substation, the lines travel across the agricultural zones
of Tulare and Bakersfield, passing through three
other substations before making another climb through the Sierra Pelona Mountains
on its way to Santa Clarita. It takes 39 miles of cable
and 310 towers to traverse this mountain range alone.
As the lines drop down into Santa Clarita Valley, they make their way
into Pardee Substation which feeds various urban substations like
Newhall Sub, the last stop before reaching our customer's home.
Above ground distribution poles snake through Santa Clarita City
passing through various transformers before reaching its final destination.
Back where we started in 1/1000 of a second
electricity generated at the Big Creek hydroelectric system
travels through the grid to a customer's home and this is just one journey among millions.
14 million customers spread over 50,000 square miles of service area,
about 115,000 miles of power lines and
870 substations, a combined 1.5 million poles and towers,
and the 12,000-plus men and women of Southern California Edison
making the journey happen to provide millions of customers
with safe, reliable and affordable electricity.