Jul. 25--SAN DIEGO ---- San Diego Gas & Electric Co.'s controversial Sunrise Powerlink transmission line received a public relations boost Monday when downtown San Diego, union and biochemical-industry leaders pledged support for the proposed $1.4 billion project.

"We need more supplies of electricity, and we need them now," said Barbara Warden, president of the Downtown San Diego Partnership, during a news conference Monday morning at Horton Plaza. Later Monday, staff members from the California Independent System Operator, which oversees the state's power grid, told a gathering of roughly 50 people that they will recommend that the agency's board endorse the transmission line project. The board meets August 3.

Julie Gill, an agency spokeswoman, said the staff has reached a preliminary conclusion that Sunrise will provide economic benefits that exceed the cost of building it.

Gill said the line also would increase the reliability of the statewide electric grid and provide a cost-efficient way to bring in so-called renewable energy, such as solar power.

"When you build a high-voltage line, it helps to improve the overall infrastructure in California," Gill said.

She said the agency has concluded that because the entire state will benefit, San Diego County ratepayers should pay only 10 percent of the cost of the project.

Sunrise would boost the region's supply by about 25 percent. Saying that they had formed a group called Community Alliance for the Sunrise Powerlink, leaders of the partnership, Biocom and the San Diego-Imperial Counties Labor Council fired off a letter Monday to the California Public Utilities Commission urging the project be approved. The state regulatory body is expected to decide the fate of the 120-mile power line by late 2007.

The Sunrise Powerlink would entail stringing 500-kilovolt wires from erector-setlike towers as tall as 160 feet through the desert of Imperial County and the mountain backcountry of eastern San Diego County. The wires also would be visible on the edges of urban areas, although large sections would be buried underground in Ramona and Rancho Penasquitos.

SDG&E, which serves 1.3 million homes and businesses in San Diego County and southern Orange County, says its customers need the 1,000 megawatts that the project would deliver.

Project opponents don't dispute that, but insist that there are other, cheaper ways to plug the region's looming power shortfall. Opponents also say the presence of the huge towers will drag down property values, harm wildlife, scar the land and mar scenic views in largely unspoiled places such as Anza-Borrego Desert State Park. The business and union leaders, as well as a San Diego politician, stressed in the news conference that California's unrelenting heat wave underscored the need for the line.

"Was it hot this weekend or what?" San Diego Councilman Jim Madaffer shouted to a cheering crowd of 100 labor council members, downtown workers and SDG&E employees, whose enthusiasm did not appear to have been dampened by a rain shower.

Stephanie Donovan, an SDG&E spokeswoman, said afterward that San Diego County set an electric-use mark of 4,502 megawatts on Saturday, shattering the previous record of 4,183 megawatts set only the day before. "It blew right through everything we have ever seen here in San Diego," Donovan said, adding that the utility had not expected to reach a peak of 4,500 megawatts until 2009.

In anticipation of another surge in use Monday, freeway signs around the region read: "Flex Your Power, Conserve Energy Today."

"There couldn't be a more important time than today to be talking about our support for the Sunrise Powerlink," said Joe Panetta, president and chief executive officer for Biocom and alliance co- chairman.

Panetta said a plentiful, reliable source is crucial for San Diego County's $160 billion economy, and particularly for its $8.5 billion life-sciences industry that employs 40,000 people in the research, development and manufacture of prescription drugs, medical devices and diagnostic tools. Any outage can prove devastating for the industry, eclipsing years and millions of dollars worth of research, he said.

Jerry Butkiewicz, secretary-treasurer for the San Diego-Imperial Counties Labor Council, said union workers across the region welcome the project, especially in Imperial County, where unemployment is high and wages are low.

"These aren't just any jobs, these are going to be good-paying jobs," Butkiewicz said.