Turned

California regulators last week turned down an emergencysix-month provisional avoided-cost measure that would have frozenthe gas prices used by utilities in their formula for payingmust-take qualifying facility (QF) electricity generators.

California regulators Thursday turned down an emergencysix-month provisional avoided-cost measure that would have frozenthe gas prices used by utilities in their formula for payingmust-take qualifying facility (QF) electricity generators.

Separate Congressional and regulatory hearings in San Diego lastweek turned up a wide array of potential prescriptions for curingwhat ails California’s still-convalescing wholesale power market,but it also exposed the continuing federal-state head-butting.State officials mostly want to first satisfy the consumer-relatedproblems, returning to regulated rates if necessary, while FederalEnergy Regulatory Commission members don’t want to abandon theiralmost decade-long push for market-based energy industries.

California’s once-dominant non-utility electric serviceprovider, Tustin, CA-based Commonwealth Energy, has turned backabout 18,000 commercial customer accounts to their incumbentutilities and is working on a fixed-price retail product to marketto San Diego Gas and Electric customers later this year.

California’s weather turned milder Monday, but that didn’t coolthe political and regulatory heat centered on its electricityrestructuring and supply/price woes this summer. The latest turnwas San Francisco-based PG&E Corp. throwing in the towel lastFriday in its plans to bring a 95-MW peak-shaving generating plantinto the San Francisco Bay on a barge.

The one-day “Natural Gas Summit” held yesterday in Coloradoturned out to be quite an eye-open for industrial gas customers andsuppliers alike, according to participants.

The cash market turned in another strong performance Tuesday,even with little in the way of either heating or cooling load forsupport.

After months of being bedeviled by high oil prices, the WhiteHouse has turned its attention to developing an interagency workinggroup to coordinate government’s efforts to help industry achieve a30 Tcf natural gas market by the 2010-2015 period.

After months of zeroing in on high oil prices, the White Househas turned its attention to developing an interagency working groupthat will coordinate government’s efforts to help industry achievea 30 Tcf natural gas market by the 2010-2015 period.