electric

Dynegy Inc. – formerly NGC Corp. – plans to construct agas-fired, four-unit, 600 MW generation facility in RockinghamCounty, NC, and Duke Power, the electric utility of Duke Energysigned a letter of intent to buy the 600 MW of capacity and energygenerated by the power plant.

A California green power marketer has apparently fallen out offavor with at least some of its investors as evidenced by a classaction filed in the U.S. District Court in California on behalf ofKeystone Energy Services shareholders who acquired shares betweenNov. 14, 1997 and Feb. 3.

Retail gas marketers got some good and bad news from BaltimoreGas & Electric Co. yesterday. The bad news was transportationcustomers have to start paying the state’s 5% sales tax for thefirst time starting in May so alternative suppliers will have amuch tougher time beating the regulated gas sales price. Thecompliance division of the state Controller’s office informed BGEof the tax change in January.

Pacific Gas & Electric said less than 1,000 of the more than60,000 customers who lost natural gas service last week in SantaCruz County, CA, were still without service Monday. A massivelandslide Wednesday had ruptured two main transmission pipelinesserving the county, which is southwest of San Jose. More than 600PG&E workers and another 190 from Southern California Gasworked thoughout the weekend to restore service. Facilities withhot showers were set up in two towns for those without gas to heatwater. It was PG&E’s largest gas restoration project since the1989 Loma Prieta earthquake caused severe damage to thedistribution system throughout Northern and Central California, thecompany said.

Public Service Electric and Gas (PSE&G) announced it willoffer a choice of other natural gas suppliers to an additional300,000 customers this summer, pending approval by the New JerseyBoard of Public Utilities (BPU). Less than one year ago, thecompany introduced the pilot, offering a choice of suppliers toabout 65,000 PSE&G residential customers in four New Jerseymunicipalities, Bloomfield, Piscataway, Pennsauken and Westampton.

Three commodity futures exchanges are expected to launch six newelectricity futures and options contracts this year based ondelivery east of the Mississippi and it looks like two Nymexcontracts could be the first to market. The Commodity FuturesTrading Commission yesterday approved the Nymex contracts, whichare based on delivery through the Cinergy transmission system (inOhio) and through the Entergy transmission system (in Louisiana). Athird Nymex electricity contract, based on delivery through thePennsylvania-New Jersey-Maryland Interconnection transmissionsystem, was not submitted to the CFTC because of recent changes inPJM policies. The PJM contract is expected to be submitted at alater date when the most active trading locations in the PJM poolare identified.

Central Maine Power Co. and New York State Electric & Gas(NYSEG), have received conditional authorization to develop a planto settle one of the last frontiers of gas distribution, Maine, butBangor Gas, a joint venture between Energy Pacific and BangorHydro, may beat them to it. CMP Natural, the joint venture betweenCMP and NYSEG, received preliminary approval from the Maine PublicUtility Commission (MPUC) to serve 60 Maine communities withnatural gas but the PUC staff still has to review the details ofits business plan application and issue a draft order. That hasbeen done already for the Bangor Gas project, a smaller projectthat would serve the greater Bangor area. Bangor Gas partner BangorHydro has some concerns of its own, however.

Independent Power Producer Cogentrix Energy has signed anagreement with Bechtel Enterprises Inc. to acquire Bechtel’sownership interests in 12 electric generating facilities, plus afractional share of Iroquois Pipeline. Most of the properties wereon the market as the result of PG&E Corp.’s acquisition lastfall of Bechtel’s interest in U.S. Generating Co. Regulatoryconstraints barred PG&E from acquiring certain of the USGenassets.

FERC has scheduled a public conference for April 15-16 toexamine the future of ISOs in administering the electrictransmission grid on a regional basis. The Commission isconsidering whether policy changes are necessary “in order topromote competition and reliability in bulk power markets.”