News Digest

 

Wait for the "second wave," when new products help suppliers escape the trench warfare of pricing.

News Digest

Congressmen, industry experts, and environmentalists square off over efforts to streamline relicensing.

April 1, 2000

State PUCs

Retail Energy Choice. At press time, Virginia issued proposed interim rules governing pilot programs for electric retail competition in electricity and natural gas, with comments due Feb. 24. The interim rules were not expected to resolve all issues, but only to provide a starting point to gain experience.

Among other points, the interim rules would require utilities to make information available through electronic bulletin boards on availability of commodity supply, ancillary services, and transmission and distribution capacity. Case No.

The top traders, investors and managers tell why energy convergence is still a pipe dream.

[Graphic tables included in the print version of the Fortnightly are not included in this electronic version.]

Energy investors seemed less willing in 1999 to greet electric/gas combination mergers with the kind of blind enthusiasm they tended to show in prior years.

Instead, they now demand proof that energy convergence really does create tangible value beyond the mere sum of the parts. At least that's the impression gained from talking with John W.

Utility restructuring seems to prompt more lawsuits by customers.

In Chicago, Commonwealth Edison Co. settles a class action lawsuit for a heat-wave outage, paying $2.5 million for items including "food spoilage," to customers served by certain city substations. In California, Pacific Gas & Electric Co. spends $8.3 million to resolve 98 percent of some 6,600 outage-related claims.

Mergers & Acquisitions

NSP + New Century. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission OK'd the merger of Northern States Power Co. (NSP) and New Century Energies Inc. (NCE), to form Xcel Energy Inc., on condition that the new company would join the Midwest Independent System Operator. FERC Docket No. EC99-101- 000, Jan. 12, 2000, 90 FERC ¶61,020.

* Rate Pancaking. The FERC found no problem with transmission rate pancaking with the MISO condition, even though NCE subsidiary Southwestern Public Service Co. (SPS) belongs to the rival Southwest Power Pool.