Grilled

A number of senators last Wednesday grilled FERC Chairman Pat Wood on whether his agency has truly listened to concerns voiced by state officials over the Commission’s recently unveiled standard market design (SMD) for U.S. wholesale power markets. One senator went so far as to warn Wood that if the lawmaker isn’t convinced that FERC is genuinely working to respond to SMD-related worries articulated by various regions, he will push to derail the proposal in Congress.

Supporting the current CEO of the state’s electric transmission grid operator, Cal-ISO, and the ultimate need to make it a regional, multi-state entity, the state operator’s former stakeholder board chair, Jan Smutny-Jones, was among the energy industry representatives subjected to public depositions by a California senate investigative committee last week in a process that will continue later this month with further hearings. Subsequent hearings are suppose to look at some of the grid operator’s market practices, particularly allegations that it is giving “preferential treatment” to the state power-buying agency, the Department of Water Resources (DWR).