California regulators have appealed to the Federal EnergyRegulatory Commission for help in completing the state’sinvestigation of prices paid in the state’s wholesale electricitymarket this past summer.

The California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) is contendingthe generators are holding back pertinent information. Thegenerators argue they will provide the information, but the CPUChas to provide sufficient protections against the information beingleaked to competitors.

“We have given that same information to FERC and it used theinformation to conclude that there was no inappropriate behavior onthe part of generators,” said Duke Energy’s Californiaspokesperson, Tom Williams. “We haven’t given (the same)information to the CPUC because it has not come up with ameaningful confidentiality protection agreement. We asked them todo that, and they have come back with something that was not at allappropriate. It would have enabled them to share the informationwith other state agencies, which would have made the informationpublic.

“We would happily provide the information to the CPUC if itwould come up with a meaningful protective order to keep theinformation confidential. We have been cooperating with the CPUCever since the Bay Area blackouts (last June) even though theydon’t regulate us. We have actually held meetings with the CPUCstaff (at its request) to explain how competitive markets work.”

A Houston-based spokesperson for Reliant Energy echoed the samesentiment and said his firm will be filing something at FERC onFriday, following the commission’s public hearing on California’selectricity market the day before. The information being sought is”very sensitive proprietary data,” the spokesperson said.

In its FERC motion, the CPUC requested that “given the urgentnature” of its investigation FERC shorten time for responding fromthe normal 15 days and provide answers by Thursday (Nov. 9).

The CPUC further requested: “(1) that the FERC adopt aprotective order that permits inter-agency sharing of informationwhile protecting the confidentiality of information provided to theCPUC by generators; (2)ÿthat the FERC treat the CPUC’s subpoenas tothe generators as if they were requests for production of documentsissued pursuant to its rules/practices in these consolidatedproceedings; and (3) that the FERC order the generators to produceresponsive documents to a narrow subset of the subpoenaedcategories of documents, as detailed below, no later than fiveworking days after the FERC issues its order compellingproduction.”

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