The FERC's latest idea throws pipelines for a loop, with implications for power markets, too.
Transmission and distribution (em the business they call "pipes and wires" (em can't last much longer with rates set by cost of service. Contrary to the myth, these services deserve no special status due to their high embedded costs. They carry no intrinsic value apart from the electrons and molecules they deliver.
Cheryl W. Gris´e was promoted to senior vice president, secretary and general counsel for Northeast Utilities and its subsidiaries. She replaces Robert P. Wax, who left NU to return to private law practice.
Houston Industries Trading and Transportation Group appointed Patrick J. Strange vice president, physical gas trading east division for NorAm Energy Services Inc. Strange joined the company in 1995, serving as director of gas trading.
DTE Energy Trading named Dowell Hudson director, business development and wholesale marketing.
State PUCs
Electric Retail Choice. The Arkansas Public Service Commission has issued its final report on electric restructuring, citing a "broad" consensus favoring competition. It predicts immediate benefits for industrial customers, but warns that residential users likely will not see any quick rate cut. The PSC saw competition as consistent with action in neighboring states:
• Oklahoma. State law mandates retail choice by July 1, 2002.
• Mississippi. PSC plan would phase-in competition from 2001 to 2004.
• Missouri.
Glasgow, Ky. power chief takes Fortnightly to task.
"The great obstacle of man is the illusion of knowledge," says Daniel Boorstin, distinguished American historian and Librarian of Congress emeritus.
It is what we think we know that keeps us from making progress toward discovering new certainties. The electric utilities of today have a lot in common with the sailors who accompanied Christopher Columbus.
Hurdles loom in 10 states eyeing deregulation.
Lawsuits and delayed deadlines. A "go slow" approach and more studies. Stranded cost debates and commission reports that make recommendations but avoid concrete action.
With a new wave of states addressing electric competition, these are a few of the themes that have emerged in 1998. In most states, the process has been slow, though the start of competition does, in fact, appear closer in many.
Report answers the sticky question: Where'd it go?
Subsidies. It's a word that prompts finger pointing from all directions in the energy industry. Now a new study, Federal Incentives for the Energy Industries, has uncovered which sources of energy (em not which type of provider (em received the most federal dollars over the past 50 years.
But don't expect the finger pointing to stop.
Management Information Services Inc., a Washington, D.C. economic and research consulting firm, found that federal subsidies over the past five decades totaled $564 billion in 1997 dollars.
ELECTRIC POWER SYSTEMS ARE HEAVILY DEPENDENT ON computers and communications. The electric power industry is reputed to be the third largest user of computers and communications, behind government and the banking industry. When regulators and legislators make decisions regarding the electric power industry, their decisions often carry implications for the industry's computer systems. However, it is rare for these implications to attract significant consideration or influence in the deliberative process.
CUSTOMER SERVICE LINKED THE FIVE FINALISTS OF THE 1998 ULTRA competition, with all addressing, and improving, some aspect of serving end users.
The contest winner, Florida Power & Light Co., combined old hardware with new software and other innovations - such as using the Internet - to address a problem that plagues many utilities: how to cut the number of just-paid delinquent customers who call for power reconnects.
Evidence suggests a decision point at 6 cents per kWh, indicating that self-generation becomes a highly viable option at that price
WHAT ROLE SHOULD REAL-TIME PRICING play in a deregulated electricity market? Can it serve as an incentive to induce customers to remain loyal to their power supplier? How do customers respond to price changes carried out under RTP tariffs?
Real-time pricing programs are now being used as a proxy for market-based pricing.
ON TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 3, THREE WEEKS AFTER I wrote this column, California voters narrowly defeated Proposition 9. In case you missed it, that was the ballot initiative that would have cut off funding for nuclear power in California through securitization or any other fancy financing for stranded costs. A "yes" vote would have told utilities, in effect, to "take these bonds and shove it."
But the voters said "no," however, and I'll tell you why - even before the first ballot was cast.
In the end, Prop 9 failed for the same reason that George McGovern lost to Richard Nixon in 1972.