The Washington Utilities and Transportation Commission (UTC) has turned back a pre-merger attempt by Puget Sound Power and Light Co. to make permanent a $165.5-million rate increase allowed under its periodic rate adjustment mechanism (PRAM). (The PRAM is designed to remove disincentives to utility conservation efforts by "decoupling" revenues from sales levels and relying instead on a revenue-per-customer approach to cost recovery.) Puget had earlier agreed to defer a scheduled base-rate filing pending the UTC's review of its proposed merger with Washington Energy Co.

Fee Simple? Utility Board Directors Get Less Than Peers

How do fees for utility board directors match up to those at other companies? Not too shabbily, as the following data show, but on the whole more modestly.

The Spencer Stuart SSBI Survey traced Board trends, based on proxy data, at 100 of the nation's leading publicly held corporations. The companion UI Survey focused on Board compensation at the 50 largest publicly owned utilities.

To what extent should regulation yield to market forces in setting wholesale electric prices? The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) posed this question when it sought comments on whether open transmission access would eliminate the need for anything like traditional rate regulation.

The merger voltage (I) is rising on the electric grid, but it remains to be seen which will win out: current (E) policy or resistance (R) to it.

Anyone on the East Coast can tell you a good snow story this winter. Like when I looked out my front window one morning and saw a four-wheel-drive utility vehicle get stuck in the middle of my street in downtown Washington. After spinning his wheels for a while, the driver got out and began walking toward Connecticut Avenue, a main DC thoroughfare.

The driver soon returned, carrying a fresh, steaming cafe latte from Starbucks in each gloved hand. He opened the door, climbed in, and gave one cup to his passenger.

Michael W. Peters succeeds Raymond G. Kuhl as executive v.p. and g.m. at the new Michigan Electric Cooperative Association. Kuhl retired January 30. Peters was general counsel at the Association of Illinois Electric Cooperatives. MECA provides services to 14 co-ops.

MDU Resources Group, Inc. has elected Thomas S. Everist, a South Dakota businessman, to its board of directors.

Peter J. O'Shea, Jr. was named senior v.p. and general counsel at Consolidated Edison. O'Shea comes from ITT Corp., where he served as v.p.

Big Share of '95 Fuel Mix

For the second year in a row, natural gas fueled an increasing share of U.S. electric generation. When the final numbers are tabulated for 1995, electric generation is expected to have increased about 2.7 percent over the previous year. This compares to a 0.98-percent increase for the 1993-1994 period. Gas accounted for over 10 percent of the 1995 utility fuel mix (em up from 8.8 percent just two years ago.

jü( )l, n: A unit of energy measurement equal to a watt-second.

According to a Newton-Evans Research Co. survey of 60 information system managers from gas, electric, and water utilities in more than 12 countries:

s About 45 percent of utilities surveyed plan to replace current computer systems through 1997.

s IOUs tend to spend more for information technology than their publicly operated peers: close to 3 percent of revenues.