Usage of utility services is rarely uniform across the day, month, or year. Dramatic increases in loads often appear at particular times of the day or in particular seasons of the year. Telephone utilities may choose not to meet extreme peak demands, but electric, natural gas, sewer, and water utilities usually do not enjoy that option. Failure to meet peak demands can lead to catastrophic consequences for both the customer and the utility, and can draw the attention of regulators.

The process of determining how to implement utility competition is often cast as a struggle between two opposing camps: shareholders and ratepayers. There are, of course, two other major players, managements and regulators. The bipolar view tacitly assumes that shareholder and management interests coincide, and that regulators have customer interests at heart. Neither assumption is altogether valid. Shareholder interests deviate from management interests in important ways, just as the interests of the entrenched regulatory bureaucracy diverge from the public interest.

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) has reviewed network transmission tariffs filed by Wisconsin Public Service Corp. (WPS) and Wisconsin Electric Power Co. (WEPCO) in compliance with a Wisconsin Public Service Commission (PSC) order requiring a FERC tariff that provides network service comparable to the service the utilities reserve for themselves. The case arose out of applications filed at the PSC by four utilities in late 1990 and early 1991.

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) has accepted and suspended tariff filings made by Tennessee Gas Pipeline Co. (TGP), ordering its staff to convene a technical conference on various issues related to TGP's post-restructuring compliance (Docket Nos. RP95-88-000 and RP95-112-000). The issues under investigation include capacity release, storage, and scheduling, as well as TGP's proposed $118-million rate increase. The FERC noted that TGP's customers "have expressed a high degree of dissatisfaction" with service from TGP. Commissioner James J.

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) has opened a paper hearing on electric loop flow issues arising from the unscheduled flow mitigation plan filed by the Western Systems Coordinating Council (WSCC) (Docket No. ER95-215-000). WSCC members have endured loop flow problems in their region for over 20 years. Expanding on previous ideas, the plan includes the coordinated operation of "controllable devices," such as phase-shifting transformers, that can reduce the level of unscheduled flow by altering power flows on parallel alternating current transfer paths.

Increasing competition in the electric power industry is likely to entail a little-recognized major complication (em greater difficulty in siting transmission lines. The stakes will often be greater, the opposition could be stronger, and both put a premium on finding a process that can win public acceptance cost-effectively.

Following Congressional approval of the Energy Policy Act of 1992 (EPAct), Rep. Ed Markey (D-MA), a key sponsor of the bill's electricity title, predicted that "competition should replace monopolism as the rule for much of the power industry. Consumers, renewable energy, and the environment will be much the better for it."

Since then, however, Markey's vision has fallen under a cloud.

Centerior Energy Co. (CE) has signed a power-marketing agreement with Citizens Lehman Power L.P. to make long-term power sales outside of CE's Northern Ohio service territories. CE will make available 550 megawatts of generating capacity from five presently idle fossil-fuel plants. This capacity will support the development of a number of "creative" wholesale power sales packages. The plants, owned by CE subsidiaries, are Cleveland Electric Illuminating Co.'s Lake Shore Plant and Toledo Edison's Acme Station. (em LB

W. Lynn Garner is senior writer and Lori A.

Virginia Corporation Commission staff have discovered that Virginia Power Co. (VP) customers overpaid $11 million for fuel under a renegotiated coal-hauling contract with CSX Transportation. Without corrective action, VP would continue to bill ratepayers for excessive fuel payments through 2000, when the contract expires.

The Wisconsin Public Service Commission (PSC) has moved one step closer to competition, meeting with electric utility representatives to explain the restructuring. Commissioner Scott Neitzel, who will oversee the process, plans to convene an 18-member committee, representing various interests, to recommend ways of introducing competition. Neitzel maintains that all customer classes will either benefit or be held harmless by the changes.