South Dakota Supreme Court has ruled that state regulators erred in authorizing an electric utility to serve an established industrial customer of an electric cooperative.

The commission had found that the Northwestern Public Service Co. could replace Northern Electric Cooperative as the electric supplier for Hub City Inc. Hub had purchased an industrial property containing manufacturing facilities served by the utility and a plant addition served by the co-op.

The Minnesota Public Utilities Commission has approved the merger of Interstate Power Co., IES Industries Inc., and WPL Holdings Inc., joining Illinois, which has also signed off on the deal. (See, Headlines, this issue, p. 21.)

The commission estimated total merger-related savings of $592.1 million to $648.1 million over 10 years. Minnesota ratepayers could save nearly $15.5 million in electric costs and $6.4 million in gas over the same period.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit has ruled that federal antitrust laws provide no remedy for complaints by a qualifying cogeneration facility that an electric utility was impermissibly curtailing purchases under its power purchase contract with the QF.

It said that Pennsylvania's recently enacted electric restructuring law "comes too late" to make the QF's complaint a valid one.

Schuylkill Energy Resources Inc., owner and operator of an anthracite coal refuse-fired QF in Shenandoah, Pa., had filed an antitrust claim against Pennsylvania Power and Light Co.

Under a new law deregulating the state's natural gas market, the Georgia Public Service Commission must enact regulations by Dec. 31, 1997, governing the certification of gas marketers and associated service quality standards and customer complaint procedures.

Minnesota has lots of drafts, but no final plan.

So you think your state has been busy? In Minnesota, the 1997 legislative session saw more than a dozen new bills introduced on electric, gas and energy issues.

At the start of the session many expected that electric deregulation would play a major part in the legislative program. However, Gov. Carlson reports now that legislators will defer work on the issue until the 1998 session. Several electric industry deregulation bills were introduced at the end of the session, but when last we checked no hearings had been held.

Subsidies? Maybe. But how about reciprocity? Should Congress let PMAs, munis and co-ops decline open access?

Until recently, most congressional debate on utility deregulation has focused on the future of investor-owned utilities and independent power producers and marketers. Lobbyists for government-owned or cooperative-owned power companies have tried to downplay their clients or to seek exemptions.

By unbundling usage from access, utilities can maximize contribution to margin and yet still retain load.

With deregulation and industry restructuring, energy utilities face price competition from marketers, brokers, independent producers and even other utilities. To succeed in this environment, utilities will need to develop innovative pricing strategies that better meet customer needs and respond more effectively to competition. The common response by utilities to competition calls for price discounting to retain "at risk"

customers by meeting the competition head-on.

How one Va. city squeezed through the cracks

Tennessee Valley Authority Chair Craven Crowell told the Tennessee Valley Public Power Association annual meeting in May: "We need to make sure our customers get the best prices and best service available in the electric power industry." But one customer's attempt to get lower prices has been 10 years in the making (em and TVA won't be selling to them for much longer.

Earlier this year, the Bristol, Va., Utility Board voted to end a tradition of 45 years of wholesale power purchases.

Speaking on June 11 in Washington, D.C., at a symposium sponsored by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Rep. dan Schaefer (R-Colo.) was heard to say that he would have his electric restructuring bill out of committee by the end of July. He said his bill would mandate electric competition by 2000--just the sort of deadline that Texas Public Utility Commission Chair Robert Gee likes to call a "Hong Kong" clause.

Will the millennium bring the dawn of customer choice? Here we are, halfway through 1997. Hong Kong is now Chinese, but in America we are still ratepayers.

Central Vermont Public Service Corp. hired former Electrolux Corp. CFO Douglas D. Sinclair as its marketing and business development v.p. and general manager. In addition to his new position, Sinclair will oversee day-to-day activities at two power generation and technology subsidiaries. Also at CV, Robert G. Clarke, president of Vermont Technical College, and Patrick J. Martin, president of America's Customer Operations at Xerox Corp., were elected to the board of directors.

John F. Cotter, former PECO Energy Co. power trader, was hired by Pennsylvania Power & Light Co.