Administration

Having reached the halfway point of its goal of 2,400 MW of load reductions in the near future, the Bonneville Power Administration’s (BPA) acting administrator Steve Wright last week urged utilities and industries that have yet to commit to reduce their power purchases from BPA to get off the sidelines and do so. NGI April 16)

To assess the impact of future gas supply interruptions, the Energy Information Administration is considering the use of mandatory surveys after using emergency surveys in the past that followed volatile swings in supplies and prices. EIA surveyed gas and distillate energy markets last winter in an emergency survey to gauge the impact on prices during fuel switching.

If the Energy Information Administration (EIA) follows through on plans to expand the confidential treatment of data it receives from electric power plants, the move could stifle efforts to promote electric competition in the United States and hamstring state and federal regulators from effectively fulfilling their oversight responsibilities.

The National Energy Marketers Association (NEM), responding to the Bush administration’s energy plan and the Democrats’ response, issued on Tuesday an urgent call for bipartisan support for meaningful incentives for massive new investments in additional energy supplies, conservation, infrastructure and technology. “Both plans recognize that new investments are required immediately, but both plans lack sufficient incentives to permit energy prices to come down,” said NEM President Craig Goodman. “Accelerated cost recoveries for new investments in energy supply, conservation, advanced energy technology and environmental protection will solve the energy supply problem quickly and is one of the lowest cost, highest yield policy solutions. New energy supplies, conservation and advanced technology will lower costs to all consumers and should be considered a moral imperative. NEM has long advocated the expansion of existing Internal Revenue Code Sections to include ‘Qualified Energy Restructuring Investments’ for new supplies, conservation, infrastructure, advanced metering and distributed generation technologies.”

If the Energy Information Administration (EIA) follows through on plans to expand the confidential treatment of data it receives from electric power plants, the move could stifle efforts to promote electric competition in the United States and hamstring state and federal regulators from effectively fulfilling their oversight responsibilities.

In an effort to assist the Northwest meet its needs during the current energy shortage out West, the Bonneville Power Administration plans to establish a short-term policy that will encourage the immediate addition of electricity generation to help the region until planned long-term generation can be built. While the BPA will not fund construction of the generators nor buy the output, BPA said that the policy complements the load reduction strategy it has with its customers. In addition, BPA noted that customers who reduce their load on BPA by 10% would be allowed to use temporary small generators to supply a small portion of their needs. The agency has asked its customers to reduce their demands on BPA so that it can avoid expensive large power purchases in the wholesale market. Such purchases could lead to a triple-digit wholesale rate increase this October, according to BPA (see Daily GPI, April 11). The temporary policy would run from June 1, 2001 through Sept. 30, 2002. But the BPA said that before it implements the policy next month, it wants to hear from the public on the details of the plan. A public meeting on BPA’s proposed policy is scheduled for May 24 at BPA headquarters in Portland, OR.

Faced with severe drought conditions and skyrocketing wholesale electricity market prices, the Bonneville Power Administration (BPA) last week warned that it may be forced to increase wholesale rates by 250% or more after Oct. 1, unless the region’s retail utilities and large industrial customers step up to the plate and agree to slash energy use within the next 60 days.

The Wilderness Society lashed out Thursday at Bush Administration plans to expand oil and gas drilling in protected areas, calling for measures aimed at conservation rather than “drilling America first.”

The amount of working gas in storage at the end of the winterheating season (March 31) will be at a record low, according to anew report by the Energy Information Administration (EIA). In fact,some operators may be forced to dip into their base gas inventoriesto maintain facilities.