IS TEMPERATURE THE SINGLE MOST IMPORTANT FACTOR IN how gas storage is used? Or are other variables involved? Can we answer these questions - and verify the results?
Since FERC Order 636, natural gas storage has grown into a high-profile asset in the industry. As a result, the industry has responded by changing the way it uses this storage. The exact nature of this adjustment is not apparent at a glance; one must first analyze industry data.
QUESTION: WHAT DO JOHN ANDERSON (ELCON),
Karl Stahlkopf (EPRI) and Matthew Holden (former commissioner at the FERC) have in common that may affect the course of electric restructuring?
Answer: Each belongs to Phil Sharp's task force on electric system reliability, and each embodies a different set of needs and aspirations, making it quite unlikely that we'll see agreement any time soon on what Congress or the Clinton Administration should do to reform the system.
Former Energy Secretary Hazel O'Leary announced the Task Force on Electric System Reliability last year.
NEW England Power, a subsidiary of New England Electric System, promoted Lawrence E. Bailey to president. Previously, Bailey served as vice president and director of generation operations.
Former Deputy Secretary of Energy, Charles B. Curtis, joined Hogan and Hartson as the director of its energy group. Susan Tomasky, former General Counsel of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, accepted a position with Hogan and Hartson's energy group.
PITTSBURGH CHALLENGES MERGER; ALLEGES COLLUSION
The city of Pittsburgh has filed an antitrust lawsuit against Allegheny Power Systems Inc., and Duquesne Light Co., to stop the merger proposed by the two companies.
In its Sept. 29 court filing, Pittsburgh claimed the two utilities acted jointly to restrain trade. The city said the companies did this by agreeing to maintain higher rates for electric retail service at two industrial sites targeted for redevelopment zones pending their merger.
EVERYONE'S GOT AN OPINION ABOUT MARKETING affiliates. In the natural gas industry, a fierce debate has emerged, as rules are proposed to govern the relationship between utility and affiliate.
Affiliate transactions are already among the most regulated activities in the gas industry. According to the 1995-96 Compilation of Utility Regulatory Policy produced by the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners, every state, except Nebraska, has jurisdiction over affiliate transactions involving a private- or investor-owned gas utility.
USE OF U.S. ECONOMY UPHELD FOR EQUITY CALCULATIONS
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, in seven rate cases involving interstate natural gas pipelines, has upheld a new policy on the appropriate long-term growth rate to be used in computing their return on equity. Five of the pipelines contested FERC's new policy, as announced in Opinion 396-b.
The Commission defended the rate-setting method, but decided to allow the pipelines a chance to prove why the rules should not apply to them. The contesting pipelines are: Trailblazer Pipeline Co. (Docket No.
WITH DIRECT ACCESS SCHEDULED TO BEGIN ON Jan. 1, 1998, California regulators are moving quickly to set up their long-considered policies on electric restructuring. The restructuring actions touch nearly every aspect of electric regulation in the state from financing decisions and rate design to the sale of generating assets and monitoring new capital additions.
In addition, restructuring has affected ongoing regulatory activities such as the development of performance-based rate making plans and pricing and rate designs for large incumbent utilities.
WHEN THE CALIFORNIA PUBLIC UTILITIES COMMISSION approved a price-cap plan for Southern California Edison's distribution operations, it lamented the lack of a "distribution-only" study on productivity. So we prepared one.
Unlike electricity generation, electricity distribution will remain a regulated business. But the form of regulation likely will change to price caps, mirroring events in telecommunications regulation here and energy regulation abroad.
With price caps, rates are reviewed formally only at set intervals.
IN THE DRIVE TO MATCH INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY SYSTEMS WITH THE
demands of "deregulatory" standards, utilities are investing billions in information technology (em some launching new business lines from their experience.
Worldwide, utilities are investing $20 billion; electric utilities pony up the most: $12 billion each year, according to Newton-Evans Research Co. An average U.S. electric utility will invest $43 million this year; a gas utility will invest $9 million.
THERE IS MUCH TALK ABOUT CONVERGENCE.
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission asks, "What needs to be done to enable the gas and electric markets to work together to become more integrated?" The real question is more direct: "How can the gas industry transform what is presently, at best, a daily market, with daily procedures, to an hourly or quarter-hourly electric generation business and gain benefits at the same time?"
Will the answer come from hourly gas trading and pricing?