The three largest California investor-owned utilities (IOUs) (em Pacific Gas and Electric Co., San Diego Gas & Electric Co. (SDGE), and Southern California Edison Co. (SCE) have circulated for comment working drafts of future Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) filings concerning a deregulated electricity industry.
One 150-page proposal asks that operational dispatch control of transmission facilities be conveyed to an ISO, beginning January 1, 1998.
Dwindling economic competitiveness has plagued the nuclear power industry for
some years. In the industry's early years, some reactors were completed for less than $100 million. Experience gained overseas (often in projects with American partners) provides sobering evidence that nuclear reactors can still be built at low cost in short periods of time.
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 As you know, the '35 Act imposes duplicative, unnecessary, and burdensome requirements that are outdated and do not reflect current circumstances in the gas and electric utility industry.
The City of Palm Springs, CA, has asked the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) to approve a plan allowing it to enter the electric business by installing a second electric meter at customer locations.
El Paso Natural Gas Co. (EPNG) has filed a settlement at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) that resolves its general rate case with natural gas pipeline customers such as Southern California Gas Co. (SCG) as well as the question of who pays for unsubscribed capacity.
Months of confidential negotiations resulted in agreements with 95 percent of EPNG's customers, and with the California, Nevada, and Arizona commissions.
Stranded investment is mostly intrastate.
Let the states work free of uncertainty.
Recent activity in both chambers of the U. S. Congress shows federal lawmakers seeking to help the electric industry move toward competition. More than likely, election-year politics will stand in the way. Even so, Congress can go one better: It can step aside and let the states lead the way.
The greatest concern lies in stranded costs (em utility assets and obligations valued on company books at above-market levels.
So the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) won't break up the electric utility industry. But it may happen anyway (em if not at the FERC's direction, then perhaps under pressure from state regulators who, some say, are threatening to link stranded-cost recovery to vertical disaggregation.
What would a breakup mean for bonds and bondholders?
As we reported last month ("New Corporate Structures Place Bondholders at Risk," May 1, 1996, p.
The prospect of deregulation has induced a wave of mergers among electric utilities. Most of these mergers would fail an antitrust review because, by combining generation assets of interconnected utilities, they have substantially reduced potential competition in generation.
The New England Electric System (NEES) has filed with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) and the Securities and Exchange Commission for authority to separate
generation and transmission, and to create a
transmission subsidiary called NEES Transmission Services, Inc. NEES Transmission has filed proposed transmission tariffs at the FERC that would give its wholesale customers, including New England Power Co.