The Oklahoma Corporation Commission (OCC) has approved an order that helps defray higher summer electricity costs with more than $2.7 million in fuel cost credits for Oklahoma Gas and Electric Co. (OG&E) ratepayers. The customer credit amounts to 0.000138 cents per kilowatt hour or an average of 13.8 cents per month for the average residential electricity user’s bill. The customer credit is part of a stipulated agreement worked out between the OCC public utility division staff, OG&E, the state attorney general and Oklahoma Industrial Energy Consumers that applies to cost recovery for gas transportation savings that result from competitive bidding. Each OG&E customer will start seeing the credit with the July billing cycle and continue to receive it until amended by the company at the direction of the Commission.

Reliant Energy announced that it will build an 800 MW generating station in south central Pennsylvania. Three natural gas-fired units will be built adjacent to the company’s Hunterstown facility in Straban Township, five miles north of Gettysburg in Adams County. Three combustion turbines totaling 60 MW already operate on the site. The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection on June 15 approved an air permit for the project to operate. Construction is expected to begin this month, with commercial operation scheduled for mid-year 2003. The facility is the second project in Pennsylvania to be announced by Reliant this year. The company broke ground Tuesday for a 520 MW, clean-coal technology project at its Seward power plant site in Indiana County.

Calpine Corp. and Bechtel Enterprises Holdings Inc. announced that a proposed decision by the California Energy Commission (CEC) on June 18 recommends approval of the 600 MW, gas-fired Metcalf Energy Center. The decision by CEC Commissioner Robert A. Laurie and Chairman William J. Keese, the two members who have presided over 24 months of public hearings on the Metcalf Energy Center application, will be considered by all five CEC members in August, following a 30-day public comment period. In the meantime, developers Calpine and Bechtel have ordered equipment and are prepared to begin construction as soon as possible. Construction is estimated to take 24 months. The project, originally planned for completion by next summer, is now planned to be online during the summer of 2003. San Jose Mayor Ron Gonzales recently reached a compromise with plant developers and withdrew his opposition to the plant, which will be located at the southern-most end of San Jose, CA (see Daily GPI, June 1).

CMS Energy Corp.’s energy marketing unit, CMS Marketing, Services and Trading announced it has been awarded a contract from Illinois State University to manage natural gas supplies for ISU’s campus at Normal, IL. Under a two-year agreement beginning June 1, 2001, CMS will provide ISU with a structured gas commodity management and procurement approach designed to minimize ISU’s natural gas costs and market risks, the company said. ISU uses an estimated 700 MMcf/year. The agreement can be extended up to 10 years by mutual agreement of both parties. Terms of the agreement were not released.

Reliant Energy Wholesale Group, a unit of Reliant Resources Inc., announced a long-term agreement under which Salt River Project (SRP) will buy all of the power to be produced by Reliant’s 560 MW Desert Basin plant. “Desert Basin will help ensure that sufficient power will be available for citizens of Arizona to meet peak demand this summer,” said Reliant CEO Steve Letbetter. “SRP’s management has shown the foresight to seek long-term solutions for the residential and commercial consumers it serves.”

A new independent study on electric reliability in Georgia finds that the state has enough utility-owned power and firm contract purchases for electricity to meet its needs, including a 15% reserve margin, through 2004. In the University of Georgia study, authors Albert Danielsen and Chip Wright studied all relevant public documents to determine if there was enough electricity being made or purchased in the state to keep the power on. The study also finds that if independent power producer plants are considered, Georgia’s adequate power supply will last through 2009. One advantage noted in the study is that utilities have the ability in Georgia to site, permit and build a new natural gas power plant in less than two years.

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