page_title: Path 15
section_title: Western Area Power Administration's third line north of Tracy
hierarchical_section_title: Path 15 / Western Area Power Administration's third line north of Tracy
caption_attribution_description: English: A picture of two dual-circuit power lines crossing I-580 in California. The smaller tower on the left is Modesto Irrigation District's 230 kV line and the larger tower is Western Area Power Administration's 500 kV line (a part of the connection between Path 66 and Path 15).
context_page_description: Path 15 is an 84-mile portion of the north-south power transmission corridor in California, U.S. It forms a part of the Pacific AC Intertie and the California-Oregon Transmission Project. Path 15 is part of The Western Electricity Coordinating Council's links of electrical intertie paths in the western United States.
  Path 15, along with the Pacific DC Intertie running far to the east, forms an important transmission interconnection with the hydroelectric plants to the north and the fossil fuel plants to the south. Most of the three AC 500 kV lines were built by Pacific Gas and Electric south of Tesla substation.
  Path 15 consists of three lines at 500 kV and four lines at 230 kV. The 500 kV lines connect Los Banos to Gates and Los Banos to Midway. All four 230 kV lines have Gates at one end with the other ends at Panoche, Gregg, and McCall.
  There are only two connecting PG&E lines north of Tracy substation that connect Path 15 to Path 66 at the Round Mountain substation. The third line between Los Banos and Gates substation, south of Tracy, is operated by the Western Area Power Administration, a division of the United States Department of Energy.
context_section_description: WAPA's 500 kV line starts at the Captain Jack substation (42°4′38.06″N 121°23′25.47″W) well to the northeast of Round Mountain. This is the Western Area Power Administration's (WAPA) Path 66 transmission line. It also heads southwest across the Modoc Plateau and crosses Interstate 5 near Cottonwood (north of Red Bluff). West of Cottonwood the line turns south and enters an electrical substation near Olinda. At Olinda, lines carrying power from Shasta Dam and other nearby United States Bureau of Reclamation facilities connect with the line. This is the end of Path 66, but WAPA's 500 kV line continues from Olinda Substation along the western edge of the Sacramento Valley. Near Antioch the line runs parallel with the two PG&E lines.  All three lines cross both the Sacramento and San
  Joaquin Rivers on very large pylons.  The WAPA line turns away from the PG&E lines and heads for another large substation near Tracy.  South of Tracy Substation (37°47′51″N 121°34′51″W), it continues as a large, dual-circuit 500 kV line that connects with the PG&E lines as they leave Tesla Substation.
caption: Rare dual-circuit 500 kV tower (right) (operated by WAPA) and smaller dual-circuit 230 kV tower (left) (operated by Modesto Irrigation District), crossing I-580; more pictures on West Coast Roads.
exif: {"Image ImageDescription": "", "Image Make": "NIKON", "Image Model": "E3200", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "300", "Image YResolution": "300", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "E3200v1.1", "Image DateTime": "2005:09:17 13:32:21", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Co-sited", "Image ExifOffset": "284", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "300", "Thumbnail YResolution": "300", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "4596", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "3203", "EXIF ExposureTime": "5/3918", "EXIF FNumber": "28/5", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Program Normal", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "50", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0220", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2005:09:17 13:32:21", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2005:09:17 13:32:21", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF CompressedBitsPerPixel": "2", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "3", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Pattern", "EXIF LightSource": "Unknown", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire, compulsory flash mode", "EXIF FocalLength": "29/5", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "2048", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "1536", "Interoperability InteroperabilityIndex": "R98", "Interoperability InteroperabilityVersion": "[48, 49, 48, 48]", "EXIF InteroperabilityOffset": "1026", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF SceneType": "Directly Photographed", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF DigitalZoomRatio": "0", "EXIF FocalLengthIn35mmFilm": "38", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Night", "EXIF GainControl": "None", "EXIF Contrast": "Normal", "EXIF Saturation": "Normal", "EXIF Sharpness": "Normal", "EXIF SubjectDistanceRange": "0"}