Potomac Electric Power Co. (Pepco) earlier this week reached amajor settlement to auction off its power generation assets andflow back much of the profits to Maryland customers as part of itsplan to begin offering customer choice beginning July 2000.
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Articles from Earlier
FERC Reaffirms Ruling On AGL Unbundling
FERC last week upheld an earlier order that paved the way forGeorgia’s largest utility to implement retail unbundling behind itscitygate in late 1998.
Electronic Trading Firms Say Capacity Auctions are Doable
While gas industry officials debated the merits of auctions,electronic trading experts earlier this week indicated they weredoable from a technical standpoint but first would require acertain amount of standardization of products, definitions andpractices.
ScottishPower Buying PacifiCorp for $7.9 B
Despite losing to Texas Utilities in an attempt to acquireBritish power giant The Energy Group earlier this year, PacifiCorpshowed yesterday it has not lost its taste for things British. Thistime, however, it’s on the other end of a merger deal. The companyagreed to a friendly takeover by ScottishPower, Scotland’s largestelectric utility, for an estimated $7.9 billion in stock.ScottishPower also will assume PacifiCorp’s $4.9 billion debt.
Hoecker Responds to Industry Criticism
FERC Chairman James Hoecker earlier this week gave theoft-disputing segments of the energy industry, especially naturalgas, an ultimatum: either play nice and come to agreement with theCommission on the series of major proposed rulemakings now facingthem, or the agency will pull the plug on comprehensive reviews inthe future.
Commission Places AEP-CSW Merger on Hold
The proposed mega-merger of American Electric Power (AEP) andCentral and Southwest Corp. (CSW) was placed on hold earlier thisweek as FERC set the case for an evidentiary hearing, saying that”sufficient concerns” had been raised about potential market powerin both the transmission and generation arenas.
‘Little Bit of Winter’ Erasing Earlier Softness
The producer who expected Midcontinent prices to be back aroundNovember indexes “fairly soon” (see Daily GPI, Nov. 3) didn’t havelong to wait. In fact, he underestimated the cash market as biggains across the board-except for intra-Alberta-Tuesday carriednearly all points back to index levels or higher. Rises between 15and 35 cents dominated the market.
CA Utilities Shop Internet-Based Retail Marketplace
California’s pioneering Internet-based retail gas market, theEnergy Marketplace, expanded earlier this month to include some ofthe largest energy users in the state and is planning a furtherexpansion into electricity marketing later this year. The plan ofdeveloper Southern California Gas Co. and partners Pacific Gas andElectric Co. and San Diego Gas and Electric Co. is to ultimately gonational with a network of other utilities in the South andNortheast.
New Jersey Resources Gets Nod to Fully Unbundle System
The New Jersey Board of Public Utilities (BPU) earlier this weekapproved a comprehensive agreement with New Jersey Resources (NJR),parent of New Jersey Natural Gas (NJNG), that would put it on afast-track to provide supplier choice to its residential customersby Jan. 1.
Natural’s Negotiated-Rate Plan ‘Premature’
FERC earlier this week rejected Natural Gas Pipeline Company ofAmerica’s (NGPL) proposal to implement negotiated rates on itssystem, saying that such a move would be “premature” until it couldact on the pipeline’s proposed auction procedures that are pendingas part of a comprehensive settlement.