Following up on earlier requests for federal help, California’slargest electric utilities and their usual adversary, The UtilityReform Network (TURN), a utility watchdog group, jointly filed withthe Federal Energy Regulatory Commission Monday for a $100across-the-board cap on all wholesale electricity prices and forlonger term fixes, including a declaration that the state’selectricity market is unworkable under its current framework.

Ultimately, Pacific Gas and Electric, Southern California Edisonand TURN — mirroring requests made earlier to FERC by SempraEnergy’s San Diego Gas and Electric — is asking for the federalregulators to replace the price caps with long-term “market powermitigation measures.” SDG&E will be filing in support of theemergency measure, according to a Sempra Energy spokesperson.

Wholesale electricity prices in California remain “unreasonablyhigh,” said Edison’s John Fielder, a senior vice president. Hecited the example of a recent Sunday, Sept. 24, when prices reached$150/MWh even though “demand was relatively low” (about 60% of whatit was on peak summer days). The utilities and consumer group areasking FERC to also look at the question of refunds of thissummer’s power costs that have exceeded the retail rates theutilities are allowed to charge by about $5 billion so far.

(Ironically, TURN has scheduled a press conference for today inSan Francisco to release a study it has done that criticizes theutilities for seeking rate coverage for their allegedunder-collections without counting billions of dollars they havecollected over the past almost three years for “competitivetransition charges” (CTC) or stranded costs.)

Monday’s petition asks FERC to act on an expedited basis andimmediately find California’s electric market is “unworkable.” The$100/MWh price cap was requested for the day-ahead, hour-ahead,day-of and real-time markets run by California Independent SystemOperator (Cal-ISO) and wholesale spot power market (Cal-PX). Edisonstressed that in the past FERC has used the $100 level as a”standard” where neither cost-based or market-based rates apply,such as charges for emergency services.

In addition, the utilities and consumer groups are asking for anexpedited hearing to establish some “intermediate steps” for usebefore long-term changes to California’s electricity market can beput in place.

©Copyright 2000 Intelligence Press Inc. All rights reserved. Thepreceding news report may not be republished or redistributed, inwhole or in part, in any form, without prior written consent ofIntelligence Press, Inc.