The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and the Maryland Public Service Commission have approved the merger of Baltimore Gas and Electric Co. and Potomac Electric Power Co. to form Constellation Energy Corp.
However, the stiff terms for approval (em including mandatory rate cuts (em have prompted the utilities to claim they might abandon the merger.
Jay L. Witkin replaces Jerome Feit, who retired, as the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission's solicitor. Also at the FERC, Judith Ann Dowd will serve as an administrative law judge. Dowd joins the FERC from the National Labor Relations Board.
PacifiCorp hired John Carr as assistant v.p., global industrial sales. Carr joins PacifiCorp from Direct Services Industries, where he served as an executive director.
Melissa L. Reese was hired by CMS Marketing, Services and Trading as a natural gas trader. CMS Marketing is the energy marketing unit for CMS Energy Corp.
Can NERC Juggle All Three En Route to Open Access?
At the year's start, the North American Electric Reliability Council decided to leave its "peer pressure" policy behind and require mandatory compliance with its reliability standards. As NERC grapples with its new policy, Public Utilities Fortnightly asked eight industry representatives how they might ensure reliability in a restructured electric industry.
It had taken time for NERC to arrive at this point, but itÆs official: Mandatory sanctions and business incentives will soon be used to enforce compliance.
Ask this question: Are Investors today earning what they thought they would, back when they last had faith in regulation?
As their customers discover more competitive prices, many utilities remain saddled with the costs of uneconomic plant and power purchase contracts approved under regulation. They seek compensation for these costs, but the amount deserves a close examination.
Some utilities seek remuneration that exceeds the market value of their common stock. Such a settlement seems overly generous for investors, who will continue to own their shares after the payoff.
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission recently gave final approval to a two-year experiment to track electricity as it travels over transmission lines (Docket No. ER97-697-000).
The experimental program, approved March 25, finalizes work proposed by a group of seven companies working independently on the General Agreement on Parallel Paths (GAPP). Other GAPP members had chosen to disband the formal GAPP committee in 1995.
The program calls for information on transmission paths to be made available electronically to all participants.
California's three largest investor-owned electric utilities have submitted their proposals to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission for implementing an independent system operator and power exchange for the state's restructured electric industry (Docket Nos. EC96-19-001 and ER96-1663-001).
Last November, the FERC had conditionally approved an "acceptable framework" submitted by Pacific Gas & Electric Co., San Diego Gas & Electric Co., and Southern California Edison (the trustee for the ISO and PX is S.
Favoring a uniform federal mandate, but also a drawn-out transition period to let the industry "prepare" itself, Sen. Dale Bumpers (D-Ark.) has recently introduced federal legislation on electric industry restructuring with the admonition that new laws should assure benefits to residential consumers (em not just the large-load customers.
Bumpers, ranking Democrat, Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, on April 7 addressed the American Gas Association's Natural Gas Roundtable in Washington, D.C., on electric restructuring, talking about his introduction of S.
I am writing to express my concern over the Feb. 1 publication of the article, "Why Applicants Should Use Computer Simulation Models to Comply With FERC's New Merger Policy" (p. 22). The authors, Mark W. Frankena and John R. Morris, have used the editorial pages of PUBLIC UTILITIES FORTNIGHTLY to deliver a highly commercial message promoting their preferred computer model at the expense of several other software packages, which they specifically name.
An insider recounts the twists and turns that led to a new state law and new rights for the state's electric consumers. On Dec. 3, 1996, Gov. Tom Ridge signed into law Pennsylvania's Electricity Generation Customer Choice and Competition Act (em a historic statute that will introduce competition in the retail market among suppliers of electric generation. The act passed primarily because of strong leadership from the governor and others.
Robert Blohm and Professor William Hogan recently traded op-ed letters in the Wall Street Journal on the "poolco" and "bilateral" models for wholesale power markets:
Writing first, Blohm (an advisor to Ontario's Macdonald Committee on electric competition) praised bilateral trading (individual buyers and sellers agree on price).