Commission

The Kentucky PSC Chair takes issue with Richard Stavros' "AEP's Gutsy Gambit," Frontlines, November 2003.

A FERC order late last year — that AEP must join the PJM grid to meet conditions of its 2000 merger with Central and Southwest Corp. — was tantamount to a declaration of war with state regulators. At the center of the issue is whether FERC has authority to pre-empt the states on development of regional transmission organizations.

Skeptics believe investors will continue to shy away from nuclear in the coming decades, but conditions are changing, with several factors pointing to expanded nuclear generation.

In a roundtable discussion, generation experts explain how environmental regulations, industry restructuring, investor confidence, and the bottom line are affecting their decision-making.

On Oct. 22, FERC ruled that FERC-regulated entities must file their cash management agreements with the commission and notify the commission when their proprietary capital ratio drops below 30 percent, and when it subsequently returns to or exceeds 30 percent. FERC’s ruling comes in response to analysis that found “severe record keeping deficiencies” by some FERC-regulated entities. This problem has led credit rating agencies like Fitch Ratings to warn that consolidated cash management accounts and failure to document fund transfers among affiliated companies as intercompany loans could be factors contributing to a U.S. bankruptcy court’s decision to consolidate a solvent company in the bankruptcy proceeding of its affiliate.

ISO New England wants to become a regional transmission organization. But just the idea — prior to any official filing at FERC — has come under attack. ISO-NE is going to find rough waters ahead, despite a three-year effort aimed at a smooth transition to becoming an RTO. And now with the Oct. 31 filing of the 2,000-plus-page RTO proposal at FERC, the stage is set for these battles to be fought, again.

Regulators from five states across the country discuss the fallout from the August blackout, and their battle with the feds over how to tackle the tough issues the states are facing.

Pity the poor Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. With its market crusade out of favor, and transmission reform suddenly suspect after the Aug. 14 blackout, it could use a new agenda. Indeed, FERC this past July had proposed a new set of standards for the connection of small- and micro-sized power plants units to regional transmission networks, or even to radial or local distribution lines operating at low voltages.

Up to now, many in the industry thought everybody but the regulators had tired of the constant back-and-forth over regional market issues such as standard market design. This is not to say that state regulators have been able to find any common resolution.

How do you value an investor-owned utility? Ever since the Enron debacle, the credit crisis and the economic downturn, many in the investment community say that there exists a need for utilities to better communicate their business vision and corporate model — particularly now that the economy is headed into an economic upswing and utilities will have to compete with higher-yielding financial instruments such as U.S. treasuries, or competing equities with higher-paying dividends.