Fortnightly Magazine - October 1 1999

Stephen W. Bergstrom was named president and chief operating officer of Dynegy Inc. Bergstrom formerly was president and COO of Dynegy Marketing and Trade and senior vice president of Dynegy Inc.

Texas-New Mexico Power Co. promoted Robert E. Castillo to vice president and regional customer officer for its Mountain Region. Castillo, formerly assistant vice president-New Mexico, replaces Allan Davis, who retired after 34 years with TNMP.

William W. Schivley was named president of Select Energy, Northeast Utilities System's marketing affiliate.

Even the FERC's own lawyers urge a new rule when a customer leaves a utility that already has too little capacity.

In a brief filed Aug. 18, staff counsel Theresa Burns and Diane Schratwieser urged the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to rethink its policy on wholesale stranded costs when a customer threatens to leave but the utility is so short of generating capacity that it can easily make up any lost revenues by reallocating the reserves to other native load customers at prevailing, regulated embedded-cost retail rates.

Federal data suggest it's not so in an "electrifying" economy.

Energy-related carbon emissions in the United States remained relatively flat last year, despite 4 percent U.S. economic growth. Although one year's data does not a trend make, the federal statistics seem to fly in the face of the notion that strict emissions cuts threaten the economy by raising energy prices and unemployment. Instead, says technology strategist Mark P. Mills, the figures evince a decade-old shift toward an electricity-driven economy.

According to the U.S.

Federal and state interests clash as the FERC battles California over the future of the state's power exchange.

The California Power Exchange will not outlive its four-year mandate because it cannot compete with lower-cost exchanges, such as the New York Mercantile Exchange, Automated Power Exchange and low-cost over-the-counter brokers. So says Edward Cazalet, chief executive officer at Automated Power Exchange and chief rival of the CalPX.