electric

Electric deregulation is moving faster in the virtual world thanthe real world. While power choice has yet to sweep the land, threeproviders of Internet-based power trading are expanding/upgradingtheir systems to meet demand and improve system flexibility.

After a string of high-inventory OFOs this summer, usually onweekends but occasionally on a weekday, Pacific Gas & Electriccame up with a new wrinkle Tuesday: a low-inventory OFO takingeffect today with a 3% tolerance for negative daily imbalances. Theutility projected that its linepack would remain below targetlevels through Friday.

Pacific Gas & Electric continued a high-inventory OFO thatbegan Saturday (see Daily GPI, Aug. 16)through Monday, tightening an initial tolerance of 5% for positivedaily imbalances to 2% Sunday and then loosening it again to 5%Monday. No OFO is in effect today.

Pacific Gas & Electric issued a high-inventory OFO,effective Saturday, with 5% tolerance for positive dailyimbalances. The utility projected above-target linepack throughtoday. However, fellow California distributor SoCal Gas did nothave an OFO-like Overnominations Day in place for Saturday.

The increase in prices is primarily attributable to increased demand for electric generation and storage injections.

The national heat wave continued through Friday into theweekend, and electric utilities continued to use appeals forcustomer conservation and other demand-side management tools tokeep juice flowing as needed. But the heavy cooling load lost itsability to keep cash gas prices moving higher. Instead, most pointswere about a dime or more down in flows for the last day of July,and although quotes for Sunday and Monday tended to surpass thosefor Saturday, they still were below monthly indexes. Sources citedthe usual drop in weekend demand, a small screen decrease andforecasts that major market areas will have cooled off a bit bytoday as reasons for the softness.

For the first time in July Pacific Gas & Electric entered aweekend without having a high-inventory OFO in place. One that hadbeen declared for Friday (see Daily GPI, July 23) was not extended.However, Southern California Gas did implement an OFO-likeOvernominations Day for Saturday.

Pacific Gas & Electric issued a systemwide high-inventoryOFO effective today. The order carries penalties of $1/Dth forpositive imbalances exceeding a tolerance of 11%. The utilityprojected that high linepack (200 MMcf greater than target) wouldlast through Sunday.

Aquila Energy landed a whopper supply deal last week withChicago-based ComEd, one of the largest electric utilities in thecountry. The contract is for up to 625,000 Dth/d and Aquila said itis the largest single natural gas contract that has ever beenarranged in the energy industry. Although terms of the one-yeartransaction were not released, marketing sources and NGI’s pricingstaff confirmed the deal is tied to NGI’s Chicago cash index, oneof the most widely used indexes in the industry.