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With 5,900 MW of new mostly gas-fired generation capacity comingonline this winter across the United States, the North AmericanElectric Reliability Council concluded in its latest WinterAssessment that “electric resources will be adequate” to meetprojected electricity demand.

With Bighorn Gas Gathering LLC turning a year old this month,the joint-venture which consists of CMS Energy affiliates andNorthern Border Partners L.P. continues to sign up new customersfor its Powder River Basin natural gas gathering system, upping itstotal number of producers to six with the newly announced additionof Prima Oil and Gas, a subsidiary of Prima Energy.

With 5,900 MW of new mostly gas-fired generation capacity comingonline this winter across the United States, the North AmericanElectric Reliability Council concluded in its latest WinterAssessment that “electric resources will be adequate” to meetprojected electricity demand.

Under pressure from marketers and now from the state’s attorney general about the legality of some proposed rules, the Georgia Public Service Commission dropped a plan last week to require natural gas marketers to forgive monthly bills sent to customers more than 90 days late. Instead, the PSC unveiled a new package of rules that among other things would heavily fine marketers for repeated and willful noncompliance.

FERC Chairman James J. Hoecker last week proposed that state andfederal regulators work together to ensure that regionaltransmission organizations (RTOs) result in healthy regionalelectricity markets.

Adding to gains achieved in Tuesday night’s Access tradingsession, natural gas futures spiraled higher Wednesday as tradersprobed into uncharted price territory in reaction to anotherbullish storage report. Fueled by that buying pressure, theDecember contract finished 24.9 cents higher at $6.265, almost$2.00 above lows notched two weeks ago.

PG&E Corp.’s National Energy Group (NEG) has announced an810 MW long-term tolling agreement with Southaven Power, LLC inMississippi, an affiliate of Cogentrix Energy.

In the wake of FERC’s much-anticipated investigation report and companion order on the California wholesale power market last week, out-of-state power marketers breathed a collective sigh of relief when the Commission declared it didn’t uncover any “specific” instances of market-power abuse on which to pin the huge run-up in power prices this past summer. The Commission focused instead on correcting regulatory and structural design flaws, specifically with the California Independent System Operator (Cal-ISO) and Power Exchange (Cal-PX), which were aggravated by severe weather and market conditions.

Based on the results of its much-anticipated investigation, FERCyesterday found that the market rules and structure for wholesalesales of electricity in California are “seriously flawed,” and thatthey — along with the imbalance in supply and demand — havecaused and will continue to cause “unjust and unreasonable” ratesfor short-term services in markets operated by the CaliforniaIndependent System Operator (Cal-ISO) and California Power Exchange(Cal-PX).