Commonwealth Electric Co. (CE) has postponed an electric retail pilot program for five industrial customers, fearing that market prices could run 5-percent higher than what the participants pay under regulation. Last summer, CE had predicted that program participants could save 15 percent off their electric bills.

CE and its consultant, Koch Energy Services Inc., attributed the jump in market prices to concern about possible power shortages follwing a shutdown of four nuclear power plants in New England.

The California Public Utilities Commission has approved an interim competitive transition charge (CTC) for Pacific Gas & Electric Co. (PGE), effective until the PUC adopts a permanent, industry-wide CTC.

PG&E would collect the charge (39 percent of the current bundled rate) from any customer existing its system before January 1, 1998, the start of electric competition in California.

PG&E spokesman Tony Ledwell said less than a dozen customers had indicated they would attempt to leave the PG&E system early.

The Consumer Choice Partnership, backed by Central Illinois Light Co. (CILCO), has unveiled a set of "principles" to send to Illinois legislators in hopes of encouraging legislation to bring electric competition in Illinois as soon as possible, for all customer classes, with limited recovery of transition costs.

CILCO is the state's only major utility not to back a bill introduced last November (proposed by the Illinois Coalition for Responsible Electricity Choice) that would phase-in retail choice through 2005.

Massachusetts-based New England Electric System (NEES) plans to sidetrack possible opposition by offering first rights to firm service on a proposed 25-mile electric transmission line to any potential users who will support the line during its permitting phase.

The new line, a 600-megawatt, high-voltage, direct-current (HVDC) submarine transmission cable from Connecticut to Long Island, would begin and end on utility property, requiring no new land takings and presumably raising few environmental issues.

The Board of Trustees of the Western Systems Coordinating Council (WSCC) has endorsed a new reliability compact that would require mandatory compliance and enforcement of established electric system reliability protocols in the Western U.S.

WSCC said it is taking a leadership role in overhauling the existing "voluntary" reliability management process and replacing it with a new framework to strengthen the roles, responsibilities, and authorities of WSCC and the North American Electric Reliability Council (NERC).

Sears, Roebuck and Co. selected Enova Energy as a partner in a "regional energy alliance." Enova Energy, an Enova Corp. subsidiary, will design and install a technical learning center at Sears' Tucson, AZ department store. The company also will provide energy services at other Sears stores in several western states. The learning center will be one of a nationwide system of energy-efficient stores used as models and for the testing and training of facility operations equipment. All of the store's services will be aimed at improving energy efficiency and reducing costs.

Jay P. Lukens, formerly a principal at Energy Market Economics, Inc., was hired by The Economic Resource Group, Inc., as managing director and principal of the company's new Houston office.

Edison Source tapped Aram G. Sogomonian, a former executive at Enron Capital and Trade Resources as its new corporate risk management v.p. Sogomonian was Enron's director of risk analytics and asset price, and also has worked at Unocal.

Larry Grossman, a senior v.p. at Cassidy & Associates, was retained by the Council on Superconductivity for American Competitiveness as executive director.

Prometheus paid dearly when he stole fire from the gods and gave it to man, but his courage paid off. Fire now belongs to the people. So should electricity, says New York state Judge Joseph Harris, of Albany, who ruled last fall that state regulators could force open New York's electric industry, but warned against hidden favoritism:

"Prometheus," wrote Harris, "in breaking the monopoly of the gods and by giving electrical energy to mankind ... [should] not be demeaned by a mere transfer of that monopoly to the lords of industry.

Each assumes a vertical breakup, but watch out for securitization.

It can prove difficult to detect any overt difference of opinion among financial credit rating agencies. That appears to be the case in today's electric utility industry, where Moody's, Duff & Phelps, and Standard & Poor's each predicts that a breakup of the vertically integrated utility is now virtually inevitable. The result, they say, will leave us with an industry made up of disaggregated high-risk power generators, and lower-risk companies engaged in transmission, distribution, and other related services.

Models can overcome a key oversight (em

that both supply and demand affect competition.

This past December, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) issued a policy statement describing important changes in how it will evaluate proposed mergers under the Federal Power Act's public interest standard. These changes should lead to significant improvements (em not only in the evaluation of mergers, but also for other matters that affect market power, %n1%n including industry restructuring and market-based pricing.