Following their recent plunge into California electricitycompetition, the world’s largest independent power producer,Arlington, VA-based AES Corp., is combing the nation looking tostructure similar deals with a large natural gas/power marketer,such as Williams Energy Services, according to a California-basedAES executive who operates throughout most of North America.

The deal AES signed with Williams to manage the input fuel andoutput power from the Southern California Edison plants AESpurchased is a multi-year gas supply and power marketing contractworth millions of dollars. Gas supplies, alone will average about600 MMcf/d with peaks near 1 Bcf/d. Williams also will market allof the power output from the three southern California coastalplants. The plants have a combined peak capacity of 3,956 MW.

AES’s Glen Davis, a vice president overseeing various domesticprojects, confirmed the company is looking at the hydroelectric andfossil plants Pacific Gas and Electric Co. and San Diego Gas andElectric Co. will be selling plants later this year.

“We’re looking at them, but we haven’t made any definitivedecisions to bid on any one set of assets,” Davis said. “Until weactually get to the point of deciding whether we can becompetitive, it is hard to say whether or not we will make otherbids.

“We don’t really limit ourselves to one fuel or technology,” hesaid, adding that AES has no nuclear, however. It owns existinghydro generation in South America and is developing new hydro inAfrica.

Longer term, he said, AES will be “exploring ways to modify the[Edison] plants, whether that means adding capacity or improvingefficiency, but nothing is cast in stone right now.” RichardNemec, Los Angeles

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