To celebrate National Engineers Week, we are highlighting a few SDG&E engineers who play an instrumental role in enabling the delivery of clean, safe and reliable energy to our community.
Jennifer Lewis is a Team Lead for Operations and Engineering and has been with SDG&E for 14 years. She leads a team of engineers focused on the reliability and safe operation of our substation equipment. Learn more about Jennifer in the Q&A below.
What made you decide to pursue engineering?
My mother was a nurse and my father was a mechanic. Both of them encouraged the math and science fields and higher education. Honestly, growing up, I didn’t know what an engineer was, but after getting involved in a high school program called MESA (Math Engineering Science Achievement), a whole new world of engineering fields opened up. I enjoy solving problems, seeing those solutions come to fruition, and learning that engineers did that.
What does a typical workday look like for you?
A typical day for me as a Team Lead is focused on ensuring my engineers are supported in their projects and providing them with as many opportunities as possible to grow their technical skills. I look for maintenance and construction activities in substations to gain field experience and insights from our field personnel. I encourage all the engineers to join and or do the same.
When I’m in the office, I’m reviewing budgets, vendor contracts and invoices, and working on my individual projects. There are many topics to learn and challenges to tackle and grow from.
Is there a project or initiative that you’ve worked on that you’re particularly proud of?
The program that I’m most proud of is the condition-based maintenance program for substation equipment. Building this program supports the need to be more efficient with O&M resources, utilize real-time monitoring, and gain valuable information on equipment to make better economic and operational decisions.
What do you like to do outside of work?
Outside of work I enjoy hiking and traveling. We went to Disney World for the first time last Thanksgiving. It was magically … tiring! We had a great time and I racked up at least 15,000 steps each day!
Thank you, Jennifer, for all that you do for our company and our community!
Experts cite improved weather conditions and related decrease in natural gas demand as contributing to lower market prices
San Diego Gas & Electric Company (SDG&E) today provided customers with an update on natural gas prices. After a significant drop from unprecedented January natural gas commodity prices, market prices for March 2023 are currently trending closer to 2022 prices.
Improved weather conditions and a related reduction in natural gas usage have resulted in lower prices along the West Coast, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), which is charged with collecting, analyzing and disseminating independent and impartial energy information. In addition, the restoration of service to an out-of-state pipeline, which has been offline for two years, is expected to increase supply capacity to the Southwest by as much as 500 million cubic feet per day.
SDG&E’s March natural gas commodity rates will be filed with the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) at the end of February. SDG&E does not set the price for natural gas. Instead, natural gas prices are determined by national and regional markets. Natural gas is purchased on behalf of residential and small business customers, and the cost of buying that gas is billed to those customers with no markup. Natural gas prices are updated monthly on customers’ bills.
The markets where SDG&E purchases natural gas remain volatile and sensitive to changing weather and maintenance updates.
What caused prices to spike in the first place?
According to the EIA, several factors contributed to higher natural gas commodity prices:
- Widespread, below-normal temperatures on much of the West Coast, including Washington and Oregon
- High natural gas demand for heating by customers in areas with below-normal temperatures