Merchant Energy Holdings LLC’s East Cheyenne Gas Storage LLC began pad gas injections at its facility in northeastern Colorado. The independent natural gas storage facility is interconnected with Kinder Morgan’s (KM) Trailblazer Pipeline in Logan County, CO with plans to interconnect to KM’s Rockies Express Pipeline in the future. East Cheyenne’s backers tout it as the first operational independent gas storage facility in the Rocky Mountain region, and through its interconnect with Trailblazer they contend it will be able to serve customers in Colorado’s Front Range along with shippers on other pipelines in the area. Initial withdrawal capabilities are scheduled for the first quarter. At an industry conference in Los Angeles last month, Merchant Energy Holdings CEO Andy Lang said the project will eventually have 14-20 Bcf of total capacity by 2015 (see Daily GPI, Oct. 14).
Tag / Interconnected
SubscribeInterconnected
Articles from Interconnected
Industry Briefs
The Mid-Continent Area Power Pool (MAPP) executive committeeapproved the execution of the memorandum of understanding with theMid-America Interconnected Network (MAIN) to merge the reliabilityfunctions of the two organizations. The MAIN Board of Directorsapproved the memorandum on April 7. The goal is to have a jointregional reliability organization (RRO) in place by November. Theorganization will ensure standards compliance through auditing,planning and operating reserve requirements and will establishsanctions procedures to enforce compliance with reliabilitystandards. MAPP is an association of more than 90 electricutilities and other electric industry participants. MAIN is one of10 other regional reliability councils under the North AmericanElectric Reliability Council.
Industry Briefs
Chicago-based GRI and GE Zenith Controls have signed a researchcontract to develop an Advanced Grid Interconnected SwitchgearSystem for the distributed generation (DG) market. The new product— expected in the marketplace by late 2001 — will build onexisting GE Zenith technology to allow for low-cost, rapidinterconnection (plug-and-play) of distributed systems within theelectric grid. DG is the integrated or stand-alone use of small,modular electric generation close to the point of consumption. Itis installed for the benefit of the specific customer, the electricsystem or both. Three independent trends — utility industryrestructuring, increasing system capacity needs, and technologyadvancements — are concurrently laying the groundwork for thepossible widespread introduction of DG. “We expect the jointproduct development effort will offer the advantage of a quantumleap in technology that will kick-start the proliferation of DG,”said David Leslie, GE Zenith Controls paralleling switchgearproduct manager. “This product will significantly lower the initialcost of interconnection equipment, and will be simple to install,commission, operate and maintain — providing a major boost todistributed generation markets.
Midwest Power Market ‘Very Dicey’ as Summer Nears
Despite the study by the Mid-America Interconnected Network(MAIN) last month indicating that power supplies in the Midwesthave greatly improved over last year, there are some who aren’tquite ready to write off the possibility of a recurrence of pricespikes for the region this summer.
MAIN Demand Growing, But Supplies Adequate
In a report released yesterday, the Mid-America InterconnectedNetwork (MAIN) said it expects a new peak for power demand in themidwestern NERC region this summer but power supplies should be”significantly improved” compared to the past two summers. The MAINstudy forecasts a peak demand of 48,157 MW this summer, compared to46,824 MW in 1998.
