Fortnightly Magazine - January 1 1998

ISOs: A Grid-by-Grid Comparison

BY THE START OF 1998, FOUR INDEPENDENT SYSTEM operators already were in operation and conditionally approved: ISO-NE, PJM and California by the FERC and Texas by the state PUC. Three more were either pending before the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission or expected to be filed in the coming months (New York, Midwest and IndeGO in the Northwest). Three additional efforts to develop ISO proposals were under way (DesertSTAR, MAPP and SPP). The Southeast is now the only large region of the contiguous United States without an ISO concept.

Rethinking WEPEX: What's Wrong with Least Cost?

AFTER MUCH DISCUSSION AND INNOVATION, CALIFORNIA is scheduled to launch its new electricity market (known as WEPEX) on Jan. 1, 1998, and we have a chance to revisit the issues. In the earlier round of this conversation, now three years past, I argued that the debate contrasting pool and bilateral models for a restructured electricity market was missing the point. %n1%n

I had thought the pool versus bilateral debate would be over by now; having both would have solved it.

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