Calpine Corp.’s 500 MW Hidalgo Energy Center began commercialoperation June 14, the company said yesterday. In March, thecompany purchased a 78.5% stake in the plant, which is located inEdinburg, TX. The Brownsville Public Utilities Board holds theremaining 21.5%. Calpine operates the energy center and providesfuel management services. The center is located within one mile ofCalpine’s Magic Valley Generating Station, a 730 MW gas-firedfacility currently under construction. The Magic Valley facility isexpected to be on line in the summer of 2001. The Hidalgo plantwill sell power into the Texas wholesale market and potentiallyinto the growing energy markets of northern Mexico.

Columbia Electric and Duke/Fluor Daniel (D/FD) announced theexecution of an engineering, procurement, and construction (EPC)contract for Columbia Electric’s Liberty Electric Power Project, anominal 530 MW, combined-cycle power facility to be constructed inEddystone, Pa. Duke/Fluor Daniel will provide lump sum turnkey EPCand commissioning services for the plant. The contract value wasnot disclosed. The plant will be erected on the former site of theBaldwin Steam Locomotive Foundry, returning a brownfield industrialsite to productive use. The Liberty Electric Power Project will beamong the first independent power projects constructed to operatein the newly deregulated electric generation industry in thePennsylvania-New Jersey-Maryland (PJM) power pool, which coversmuch of the heavily populated Mid-Atlantic region. Commercialoperation is planned for first quarter 2002.

Tucked inside a “supplemental notice” addressing FERC’s interimreliability measures, the Commission yesterday reported that it”has begun and will continue an extensive review and audit” ofelectric transmission owners’ Open Access Same-time InformationSystem (OASIS) sites to ensure compliance. OASIS originally was setup to provide the electric market with Internet access toinformation on transmission owners’ prices and availability oftheir transmission capacity, but critics contend it has failedmiserably. Only a few OASIS sites provide the pertinent market dataneeded to oversee transmission market behavior, they contend. Inthe notice, the Commission responded to a number of industrycomments on the interim measures it issued in mid-May to improvereliability of the bulk power market this summer. For one, FERCsaid the waivers and other authorizations it granted to on-sitegenerators would only apply to the wholesale “sales” of power thatthey actually produce; the waivers would not apply if an on-sitegenerator purchases power and then resells it to the wholesalemarket.

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