Once burned, but twice eager, utilities reprise their 1980s-era strategy, this time in the telephone business.
"It's not like they're going to open a pharmacy. It is directly related in some way, or at least arguably."
Earlier this year, 15 utilities grabbed the brass ring: a full-blown chance to enter the telecom business.
After reviewing an application by National Fuel Gas Distribution Corp., a local distribution company (LDC), to increase its purchased-gas cost rate, the Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission (PUC) has ordered the LDC to credit its sales customers with revenues collected from the transportation class as penalties for exceeding the current 10-percent limit on delivery imbalances. The PUC explained that costs for storage capacity due to overdeliveries by transportation users should be paid for by the class of customers responsible for such costs.
Stranded-cost recovery plus incentives for renewable energy.A New England utility executive told a U.S.
Moody's Investors Service has confirmed the debt ratings of California's three largest IOUs (em Pacific Gas and Electric Co. (PGE: Sr. Secured A2), San Diego Gas and Electric Co. (SDG&E: Sr. Secured A1), and Southern California Edison Co. (SCE: Sr. Secured A2) (em following passage of AB 1890, the California legislature's restructuring bill.
Moody's says that legislative endorsement of stranded-cost recovery is a favorable development for utility creditors, but notes that ultimate recovery depends on regulatory approval.
The Massachusetts Department of Public Utilities (DPU) has clarified an earlier ruling on sharing revenues that local distribution companies (LDCs) receive from certain interruptible services and capacity-release transactions. In that ruling, the DPU had established that LDCs could retain 25 percent of margins above a designated threshold. Re Interruptible Transportation/Capacity Release, D.P.U. 93-141-A , Feb.
A federal district court in Massachusetts has ruled that it has no jurisdiction to hear a complaint brought by a qualifying cogeneration facility (QF) concerning stranded-cost recovery charges proposed by an electric utility and approved by the Massachusetts Department of Public Utilities (DPU). (For prior ruling approving the charge, see Re Cambridge Electric Light Co., 164 PUR4th 69 (Mass. D.P.U.
In the race toward competition, will outside investments break their poor track record?
The current rash of utility investments outside of the core franchise businesses appears to follow a pattern: a new spree of diversification every decade. Diversification was the rage in the early 1970s before the energy crisis, and revived during the mid-1980s when huge construction programs wound down. It has now reemerged as the threat of competition curtails traditional investment opportunities.
The Texas PUC has approved a plan creating the nation's first independent system operator (ISO) from the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT). The ISO will be governed by an 18-member board, with three members each from IOUs, municipal utilities, electric co-ops and river authorities, transmission-dependent utilities, IPPs, and power marketers.
A key part of the ISO plan is an electronic transmission information network (ETIN), which ensures equal access to transmission system information, such as available transmission capacity, product offerings, and prices.
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.