Celebrating Our Past. Focused on the Future.
Twenty years ago, Sempra Energy was formed as a merger of two century-old utilities – Pacific Enterprises and Enova Corporation, the former parent companies of Southern California Gas Co. and San Diego Gas & Electric. Over the past two decades, Sempra Energy has grown into a diversified, global energy company. Since its formation, the company has been successful in developing a balanced portfolio of businesses comprised of top-tier utilities and long-term-contracted energy infrastructure assets.
Sempra Energy has nearly quadrupled its market value since 1998, contributing more than $260 million to charitable causes and continuing to find innovative ways to best serve over 40 million consumers worldwide.
total shareholder return over 20 years
community contributions since 1998
consumer increase since 1998
20 Years of Innovation
Sempra Energy completed its $9.45 billion acquisition of Energy Future Holdings Corp., including EFH's approximate 80-percent indirect ownership interest in Oncor Electric Delivery Company LLC. The close of the transaction created a utility holding company with the largest U.S. customer base.
Pacific Enterprises and Enova Corporation completed a $6.2 billion merger to create Sempra Energy, an energy services company with the largest regulated utility customer base in the United States. In 1998, Sempra Energy’s 12,000 employees served approximately 21 million consumers across 27,000 square miles in Southern California. Twenty years later, in 2018, the Sempra Energy companies' approximately 20,000 employees serve more than 40 million consumers worldwide.
In 1999, Sempra Energy expanded into South America with the acquisitions of two utilities – Chilquinta Energía in Chile and Luz Del Sur in Peru. This gave Sempra Energy a solid platform for growth in the rapidly expanding Latin American energy market and added substantial electric utility assets to the company’s portfolio.
Sempra Energy Resources, the former power generation subsidiary of Sempra Energy, completed three state-of-the-art power plant projects in Arizona, California and Mexico in July 2003. The plants were constructed to help meet the growing energy needs of the Pacific Southwest.
The Sempra Energy Foundation was founded in 2007 as an organization dedicated to helping communities through grants, volunteering and employee giving. The Foundation is dedicated to investing in creative and innovative ideas, encouraging collaboration and supporting the personal engagement and involvement of employees of the Sempra Energy family of companies.
In May 2008, Energía Costa Azul in Baja California began commercial operations, making it the first LNG receipt terminal on the West Coast. Located about 15 miles north of Ensenada, the terminal can process up to one billion cubic feet of natural gas per day.
In July 2009, the Cameron LNG receipt terminal near Lake Charles, La., successfully completed performance testing and began commercial operations. Cameron LNG’s first cargo arrived aboard BP’s British Diamond, an LNG carrier bringing supplies from Trinidad.
In June 2012, SDG&E’s Sunrise Powerlink was completed and put into service. The 500,000-volt transmission line is capable of carrying enough power to serve 650,000 homes. The completion of the nearly $1.9 billion project culminated a five-year-long environmental review and permitting process, and 18 months of construction that encompassed both overhead and underground technology.
In March 2014, Sempra Energy’s Mexican subsidiary IEnova successfully executed its initial public offering (IPO). IEnova was one of the first private companies to invest in the energy sector in Mexico following the reforms that opened the market for energy infrastructure development. IEnova’s assets are divided in two segments: The natural gas segment includes pipelines, natural gas distribution and LNG; and the power generation segment includes wind and solar facilities.
In May 2013, Sempra Energy, Mitsubishi Corp. and Mitsui & Co., Ltd., signed 20-year tolling capacity and joint-venture agreements to support the development, financing and construction of a liquefied natural gas (LNG) export facility at the site of the Cameron LNG receipt terminal in Hackberry, La.
Less than a year later, in February 2014, the U.S. Department of Energy issued a conditional authorization that allows Cameron LNG to export domestically produced liquefied natural gas from its proposed liquefaction facilities to countries that do not have a free trade agreement with the U.S.
In January 2016, the California Public Utilities Commission approved SDG&E’s Electric Vehicle Grid-Integration pilot program to install thousands of EV charging stations at businesses and multi-family communities, including in underserved neighborhoods, throughout San Diego and south Orange Counties. In addition to expanding access to EVs, the pilot features special rates that encourage EV drivers to charge their cars when electricity supply, including renewable energy, is plentiful and energy prices are low.
In August 2017, IEnova signed long-term contracts with a subsidiary of Valero Energy Corp. for the storage capacity of the liquid fuels marine terminal to be constructed in Veracruz and two inland storage facilities to be constructed in Puebla and Mexico City. These facilities are IEnova's first ventures in Mexico's emerging $10 billion liquids market.
In October 2017, SoCalGas installed the first power-to-gas project in the U.S. at the Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Lab in Golden, Colo. Power-to-gas technology is a cutting-edge method of storing excess renewable energy. The project is the first of its kind in the United States converting hydrogen generated from excess renewable power into pipeline quality methane for use in homes, businesses and in transportation.
