electricity

The California Public Utilities Commission Thursday decided totemporarily mandate that large electricity customers who have optedfor price breaks by voluntarily agreeing to be curtailed duringextreme peak-demand periods remain on their interruptible scheduleat least through March 31, 2001. The regulators took the action tocoincide with a statewide effort now underway to beef up thecurtailment program before next summer to have more voluntarycurtailed load in place if needed to avoid rolling blackouts duringpeak-demand times.

Power sellers have urged FERC to reject two complaints that seekto void a $6,000/MWh bid for imported electricity that was used toset the market clearing price in the New England Independent SystemOperator for five hours last May 8.

Aside from the political cries for regulatory actions to provideconsumer electricity rate relief, two days of federal hearingsMonday and Tuesday turned up a wide array of diagnoses andpotential prescriptions for curing what ails California’sstill-convalescing wholesale power market.

Power sellers have urged FERC to reject two complaints that seekto void a $6,000/MWh bid for imported electricity that was used toset the market clearing price in the New England Independent SystemOperator for five hours last May 8.

PG&E Corp. last week made another stride to bring moreelectricity generating projects online in an attempt to provideCalifornia with an adequate power supply in the future. The companyentered into an agreement with Waste Management Inc. to replace 120diesel-fueled garbage collection trucks with natural gas-fueledversions in order to offset the emissions of a proposed 500 MWnatural gas-fired power plant to be located in San Diego County.

PG&E Corp. last week made another stride to bring moreelectricity generating projects online in an attempt to provideCalifornia with an adequate power supply in the future. The companyentered into an agreement with Waste Management Inc. to replace 120diesel-fueled garbage collection trucks with natural gas-fueledversions in order to offset the emissions of a proposed 500 MWnatural gas-fired power plant to be located in San Diego County.

The California Electricity Oversight Board has called on FERC toorder the state Independent System Operator (Cal-ISO) to maintainexisting bid caps on wholesale energy, ancillary services andreplacement reserves until the Commission completes its probe ofthe California bulk market, initiates reforms and finds the marketsto be “workably competitive.”

As a footnote to the wide-ranging issues emerging fromCalifornia’s electricity wars this summer, the City of Los AngelesDepartment of Water and Power (LADWP) Tuesday paid a record $14million penalty to regional air quality regulators as a result ofrunning its older, more polluting LA Basin generating plantsfull-out this summer. The heavy penalty points up an increasinglytenuous situation for merchant generators who are running out ofways to avoid exceeding their plants’ air emission limits.

It is hard to imagine in California’s current summer of extremeelectricity discontent, but Southern California Gas, the nation’slargest natural gas distributor, envisions electric generationloads dropping by up to 38% over the next 20 years, according toits latest submission to the annual California Gas Report.