electricity

Increased gas and electricity price/supply volatility is musicto the ears of natural gas storage developers, and no one iswhistling louder these days than two firms sinking their investmentdollars into depleted gas fields in California: Western Canada’sAlberta Energy Company, developer of the state’s first merchantunderground storage project, Wild Goose Storage, in a depleted gasreservoir 50 miles north of Sacramento; and Western Hub Properties,the Texas-based developer that will begin construction of thefirst of two new storage projects in the state by the end of March.

After a busy year of purchasing electricity generating capacity,Allegheny Energy reported growth in both fourth quarter earnings aswell as year-end totals over 1999 levels. The company posted recordyear-end earnings of $313.7 million ($2.84ÿper share), beforeextraordinary charges, an increase of 8% over comparable 1999earnings of $307.2 million ($2.64ÿper share).

FERC has given Southern California Edison until noon today (PST)to pay the California Power Exchange (Cal-PX) for its bulkelectricity purchases, which is the deadline by which the Cal-PXmust pay its creditors.

Cinergy Corp. yesterday reported that its non-regulated affiliate, Cinergy Capital & Trading, is in the process of adding almost 1,000 MW of electricity to its generating portfolio in the southeastern United States through an acquisition of two of Enron North America’s power plants.

Cinergy Corp. yesterday reported that its non-regulatedaffiliate, Cinergy Capital & Trading, is in the process ofadding almost 1,000 MW of electricity to its generating portfolioin the southeastern United States through an acquisition of two ofEnron North America’s power plants.

California energy officials declared another power alert Mondayas statewide electricity reserves threatened to dip below 7% in theface of near-record cold weather power demand and more than 11,000MW out of service, about 4,000 MW of which were on an unplannedbasis. Part of the unplanned loss of generation capacity wasattributed to a transmission breakdown in the San Joaquin Valley onpart of Pacific Gas and Electric Co.’s system.

In an effort to hold off power supply shortages until largerelectricity generating plants come online, the New York PowerAuthority (NYPA) reported that it has selected sites within NewYork City for nine of 11 natural gas-burning generators itpurchased from General Electric Packaged Power.

In the midst of the continuing uncertainty over regulatorytreatment of growing wholesale electricity cost under-collections,Fitch Tuesday assigned a “rating watch negative” designation to thesecurities of California’s two largest investor-owned utilities,Pacific Gas and Electric and Southern California Edison (and itsparent company, Edison International). In addition, it loweredEdison’s commercial paper rating one notch to “F1” from “F1+”.

Exelon Corp., a big new kid on the electricity block, is expected to begin trading today on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol “EXC.” The new company is the product of the $8 billion merger of Unicom Corp. and PECO Energy Co. which was completed on Friday, following approval by the Securities and Exchange Commission.