American Electric Power

techniques may imply trade-offs in service

quality.By Scott L. Englander, John E. Flory,

Leslie K. Norford, and Richard D. TaborsAs facility manager for a large hotel, you browse your energy vendor's web site to view tomorrow's hourly prices. But it seems your computer (pc) has already done some browsing of its own. Since it's connected to your energy management system, your pc has already looked up the weather forecast and has logged on to the hotel's main computer to find out what rooms will be used.

Despite a recent delay, the stage

appears set for online trading

in electric transmission capacity.

THIS IS ONLY A TEST (EM FOR NOW.

But come January, if all goes well, the OASIS program will start up in real time, with customers venturing onto the Internet to place reservations for capacity on the nation's electric transmission grid.

The Ohio Supreme Court has cleared the way for state regulators to review a complaint by Cleveland Electric Illuminating Co. that American Electric Power (AEP), a utility holding company, used one of its electric generating subsidiaries, Ohio Power Co., as a "straw man" to circumvent the state's utility service territory laws and serve one of its retail customers.

Mid-American Power, LLC has bought a 53-Mw, coal-fired generating plant, put it on the power grid, and plans to convert the facility into a 300-Mw, gas-fired, combined-cycle plant. Mid-American bought the E.J. Stoneman Station in Cassville, WI, from Dairyland Power Cooperative after almost two years of negotiations. The companies making up Mid-American include Power Systems, Ltd., Burns & McDonnell Engineering, Inc., and WPS-Power Development, Inc. The plant supplies energy to two regional utilities.

While setting fuel-cost, adjustment-clause rates for Ohio Power Co., a subsidiary of American Electric Power Co., Inc. (AEP), the Ohio Public Utilities Commission (PUC) has ruled that the utility may include emissions-allowance-trading brokerage fees as an expense in determining its new electric fuel-component rate. The PUC found the brokerage fees "directly and justifiably related" to the sale of emission allowances, hence qualified for recovery under adjustment-clause regulations.

A special report

on transmission,

power pools, ISOs,

and the fallout from FERC Order 888."WHAT IS NEW IN THE INDUSTRY IS

not the conclusion that coordination in operations is needed to avoid chaos.

On behalf of our members, we want to express our continuing appreciation for the leadership you and your colleagues are showing in seeking enactment of S. 1317, a bill to repeal the Public Utility Holding Company Act of 1935, while assuring appropriate consumer and investor protection. As you know, the '35 Act imposes duplicative, unnecessary, and burdensome requirements that are outdated and do not reflect current circumstances in the gas and electric utility industry.

A few weeks ago I picked up a copy of one of those law firm newsletters, this one published quarterly by Reid & Priest, titled the Utility Telecommunications Advisor.

Six midwestern utilities have agreed to establish an independent system operator (ISO) to ensure nondiscriminatory open access to their combined bulk-power transmission systems.

Plans for the "Midwest ISO" should be filed at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) late in 1996. Members include American Electric Power Co. (AEP), Centerior Energy Corp., CINergy Corp., Detroit Edison Co., Northern Indiana Public Service Co., and Wisconsin Electric Power Co.

Carter T. Funk was promoted to v.p.-business and operations services at Consolidated Natural Gas Co. He moves up from v.p.-asset acquisition and resource development at CNG Energy Services.

Marian M. Davenport was promoted to v.p., general counsel, and secretary for Destec Energy, Inc. She replaces Stephen R. Wright, who retired.

Central and South West Corp. has elected Jim Ellis, chairman and CEO of SEEBOARD plc, to its board of directors.