The continuing public split between the nation’s largestmunicipal utility and California’s nonprofit, state-charteredtransmission grid operator is widening with finger-pointinginvolved in the plans for heading off potential power shortagesthis summer. Left unresolved is the more than two-year-olddiscussion attempting to bring the Los Angeles Department of Waterand Power (LADWP), a transmission- and generation-rich muni, intothe state’s fold.

Prospects statewide for pockets of insufficient peak power whenthe weather heats up have accentuated the rift because the stategrid operator, California ISO (Cal-ISO), is looking at possible netshortfalls while LADWP is facing the summer with excess power tosell even in most peak-load situations.

“Put simply, they (Cal-ISO) have a problem and we don’t,” saidLADWP’s general manager, S. David Freeman, following a ceremonycelebrating the city utility’s slashing more than $2 billion of itsgenerating plant debt in the last 2-1/2 years. “We have surplus,and they don’t. Their problem is our opportunity.”

Freeman said the department’s last complete fiscal year(1998-99), LADWP earned net revenue of almost $100 million inwholesale power sales.

At the center of the animosity is the inability of the Cal-ISOand LADWP to agree on terms for the massive muni turning over toCal-ISO its transmission system, which represents a little morethan one-quarter of the state’s hi-voltage transmission system.Ultimately, Freeman indicated that the state legislature may passsome legislation this summer to helps resolve the issue.

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