FERC staff has asked the California Independent System Operator (CAISO) to provide the federal agency with additional information the grid operator has collected that may shed further light on whether other power companies engaged in questionable trading strategies executed by former energy trading giant Enron Corp.

In a Feb. 10 letter to CAISO, FERC staff references an ISO-generated report entitled “Analysis of Trading and Scheduling Strategies Described in Enron Memos,” as well as related studies, including a Jan. 17, 2003 addendum.

“Provide any and all further analysis, information and conclusions prepared by the California ISO beyond that which is contained in the released reports,” wrote Donald Gelinas, associate director of FERC’s Office of Markets, Tariffs and Rates.

FERC staff asked CAISO to identify the other entity that overscheduled generation on May 21-23, 2000, in addition to Enron, that was identified in the grid operator’s November 2002 study, “Did Any of Enron’s Trading and Scheduling Practices Contribute to Outages in California?” FERC staff asked the grid operator to offer any additional analysis or information on this entity’s and Enron’s trading patterns using this strategy. FERC want to know whether any other entities also utilized this trading tactic.

Moreover, the federal agency also wants CAISO to furnish it with any additional information related to counter-flow revenues on out-of-service tie-points specifically relating to the five hour outage across the Four Corners tie-point on May 28, 2000. FERC directed the grid operator to include the identity of the scheduling coordinator or coordinators and their potential profits from this strategy.

The letter also asked CAISO to provide any additional information or analysis of “megawatt laundering,” particularly during December 2000, including the identity of the entity or entities engaged in such activity and their potential profits from this strategy.

Finally, Gelinas asked CAISO to offer any information or analysis on “economic withholding” during May-October 2000 in the CAISO and California Power Exchange markets. Gelinas said that for purposes of the request, economic withholding is any bidding behavior that uses unusual bidding patterns “or the use of excessively high bidding which is not supported by marginal costs.”

The information request is part of FERC’s ongoing fact finding investigation of the potential manipulation of electric and natural gas prices [PA02-2].

Meanwhile, several California state Senators last week asked the head of the CAISO to delay any additional work on the ISO’s plans to implement locational marginal pricing (LMP) as part of the grid operator’s much broader market design proposal.

The lawmakers want to see a cost-benefit study on LMP completed before any additional efforts are expended on that portion of the market design proposal.

©Copyright 2003 Intelligence Press Inc. Allrights reserved. The preceding news report may not be republishedor redistributed, in whole or in part, in any form, without priorwritten consent of Intelligence Press, Inc.