DOE

Power Pools & Reliability

SUMMER IN WISCONSIN. Responding to concerns about the electric shortages of the summer of 1997 and fears that they could happen again, Wisconsin PSC Commissioner Joseph P. Mettner has indicated that the state's energy supply outlook for the summer of 1998 appears much better in eastern Wisconsin than it did one year ago.

Mettner noted that Wisconsin's electric supply system is operating with expected reserve margins of 19.2 percent. But he cautioned that electric power flows do not respect borders.

THERE'S A STORM coming. This tempest threatens to inundate management and shred shareholder value. It can't be avoided, only survived. Only those who batten down the hatches will survive.

The issue is nuclear plant decommissioning. While many would prefer to comfort themselves that the dark clouds on the horizon are still far off, trouble may come sooner than they think.

Of the 106 operating plants in the United States, more than half were licensed before 1978. Of the plants that have shut down so far, not one has reached the expiration of its license period.

POLITICS WON OVER PURPOSE AS AN EARLY VOTE on a nuclear waste bill in the U.S. Senate was itself laid to waste, apparently victim of a contested Senate seat in the state where spent fuel would be stored.

The June 2 vote would have limited debate on H.R. 1270. By getting a vote count, the leanings of senators on the bill would have been tested. And the way would have been paved for Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott (R-Miss.) to schedule a second, more formal vote on the measure.

CROSS THE COUNTRY, CRITICISM RISES FROM INVESTOR-owned utilities as public power agencies are drawn into regional or national markets through power pools and the geographic expansion of power marketing activities. Whether these agencies are seen as federally funded or just indirectly subsidized, the complaints remain the same: tax advantages, no reciprocity, exemptions from regulation.

Who really has power over the power? Do public power agencies enjoy an advantage, as private industry claims?

LAST NOVEMBER, Energy Secretary Federico Peña asked the DOE

to study what to recommend about the Tennessee Valley Association in drafting proposed legislation on electric restructuring for the Clinton Administration. He referred the project to a committee of the Secretary of Energy Advisory Board, led by former South Carolina Congressman Butler Derrick.

The committee issued its report on March 31. The DOE had already released its legislative guidelines on March 25, six days earlier.

PIPELINE CONSTRUCTION. Chief Judge D. Brock Hornby of the U.S. District Court in Maine, decided to allow Portland Natural Gas Transmission System access to electric transmission corridors owned by Central Maine Power Co. The access will be used to install a natural gas pipeline.

Portland received FERC approval Sept. 24 for installing and operating a 292-mile, $302-million interstate pipeline. CMP owns about 70 miles of the electric transmission corridor. The preliminary injunction, issued April 10, gives Portland access to property on CMP-owned transmission corridors.

PUBLIC UTILITIES FORTNIGHTLY SPOKE WITH FEDERAL Energy Regulatory Commission Chairman James Hoecker shortly after the Clinton Administration released its long-awaited Comprehensive Electricity Competition Plan.

Although Hoecker sees new legislation as only "the remotest of possibilities" for this session of Congress, he expects that the "real debate" will begin next year, with environmental issues perhaps proving to be the most difficult to solve.

Are mergers bad for competition? "Not necessarily," he says.

ATER HEATER STANDARDS. Thank you for your recent "Frontlines" editorial regarding the debate on the options for basing new water heater efficiency standards ("Water Heater War," March 15, 1998, p. 6). Your article accurately captures the rhetoric which can result when standards setting actions meant to protect the public, such as the Department of Energy appliance standards, are used to promote political agendas and gain competitive advantage.

I wanted to provide some clarification regarding Virginia Power's comments on the water heater efficiency standard issue.

HANGING FUEL SOURCES. Editor Bruce Radford quoted me in his editorial "Water Heater War" in the March 15, 1998 issue. I'd like to clarify a few points.

Where I'm quoted as saying the Department of Energy should consider heat pump water heaters as separate appliances, my point was that the gas industry could market its own gas-fired heat pump water heaters (not gas-fired heat pumps (em a different technology), using a gas-fired heat pump and attaching a heat exchanger.

FOILING EXPECTATIONS OF BOTH SUPPORTERS AND detractors, the Clinton Administration's proposed electric restructuring legislation offered no new policy on carbon-dioxide emissions, such as a cap-and-trade program similar to that already in place for sulfur dioxide.

But don't breath a sigh of relief. The debate has only begun.

Many observers see the Administration's tactics on CO2 as an obvious attempt to sidestep a highly sensitive political issue. They appear to agree that at some point the Administration must confront CO2 emissions.