Local resident Linda Haddock, was interviewed by KPBS for their news segment "San Diego Leads Way In Reshaping Nation’s Power Grid".

Excerpt below:-

Borrego Springs sprawls across a mostly flat desert valley about 80 miles east of San Diego. When the afternoon wind blows in the summer it feels like an oven door has opened nearby. The remote location is both an attraction and a challenge.

"We are 50 miles from another community that has a big box store. We are 30 miles from the nearest gas station if our power goes out," Linda Haddock said.

She has lived here for about 10 years where daytime temperatures can languish above the century mark for long periods during the summer. That creates a voracious appetite for power, Haddock said, an appetite that has at times pushed her monthly power bill over $1,000.

"Our electric bills soar in the summertime," Haddock said. "We live in the desert. If the temperature is going to be 120 outside. It's going to be 160 in your car. The ground is 180. It's not going to cool down that much at night."

Haddock's gated resort community is a cluster of manufactured homes surrounding a green golf course. A swamp cooler, which humidifies the air in her home, keeps the trailer cool most of the time. But in the summer, she needs traditional power-hungry air conditioning to keep the heat in check.

The electricity that feeds her appliances pulses through a single high-voltage power line that comes from San Diego. That San Diego Gas & Electric line climbs over a treacherous mountain range.

To read the whole article and to watch the video, go to http://www.kpbs.org/news/2016/aug/04/san-diego-leads-way-reshaping-nations-power-grid/