A power plant that has been mostly sitting idle for about a decade in Grand Terrace could resume generating electricity by next year.

The former Southern California Edison facility is among three electricity-generating plants being readied in San Bernardino County at a time when threats of statewide blackouts have become a nearly daily occurrence and power usage is expected to rise in the future.

Redlands officials are looking into building a one-megawatt plant.

In Grand Terrace, the Riverside Canal Power Co. is considering several proposals to revive and expand a nonoperating natural gas-powered facility that was capable of generating about 150 megawatts.

In San Bernardino, the Mountainview Power Co. is planning to upgrade an existing, but nonoperational, 120-megawatt plant. Both companies are subsidiaries of Massachusetts-based Thermo EcoTek.

"Certainly there is a climate during this state shortage of electricity for an increase in people's awareness of the need to get new power plants online," Gary Chandler, project manager for both Riverside Canal and Mountainview projects, said.

The Riverside Canal and Mountainview companies acquired the Grand Terrace and San Bernardino plants in 1998. Edison had been forced to sell off many of its generating facilities because of deregulation legislation.

The Grand Terrace plant had been called the Highgrove Generating Facility when it was owned by Edison, Chandler said. Highgrove is an unincorporated Riverside County community just south of Grand Terrace. Last summer, Edison officials leased the plant from the Riverside Canal company to handle increased power demands.

"Other than that, that plant has not been running for something in the range of 10 years," Chandler said.

Chandler said plans call for tearing down the Grand Terrace plant, perhaps keeping steam-driven turbines there, and building a new facility.

"That plant is very old, has very high emissions and is extremely inefficient," he said.

One possible alternative calls for creating a plant capable of generating about 200 megawatts, enough to serve about 150,000 people and businesses, Chandler said. The estimated cost for this project is $150 million.

This plant could begin producing electricity by the middle of 2002.

Another alternative calls for a plant capable of producing about 500 megawatts. This plan could cost $350 million and serve about 400,000 people and businesses by 2004, Chandler said.

The 120-megawatt Mountainview plant in San Bernardino could be expanded to produce about 1,200 megawatts, enough for about 1 million people and businesses. This plant could be ready by 2003.

Last week, Redlands officials approved spending about $31,000 to have a Costa Mesa engineering firm design plans for a one-megawatt methane-powered plant in the city's north end. The plant could be ready by this fall.

Last year, Colton leased space at two of its substations to a Denver-based power company to build facilities to generate 80 megawatts. Other Southern California cities also are considering or planning to construct similar facilities.

Roberto Hernandez can be reached by e-mail at rhernandez@pe.com or by phone at (909) 890-4447.