[BETA] Fortnightly

Metropolitan Edison Co. (ME) and Pennsylvania Electric Co. (PE), subsidiaries of General Public Utilities Corp. (GPU), have asked the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) for rehearing on parts of its July 6 order, which the two companies had challenged under the Public Utility Regulatory Policies Act in Pennsylvania (Docket No. EL95-41-000).

Specifically, the utilities had challenged the Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission's (PUC's) method of using a coal plant proxy to calculate a default level of avoided costs. The PUC found the issue moot, but claimed its regulations require that all alternate sources of electric energy be taken into account. The utilities asked the FERC to:

1) Reconsider its refusal to invalidate the PUC's method of determining whether the developer of a qualifying facility developer has a legal obligation to supply power

2) Recognize that contract prices with two projects were biased by the PUC's threatened imposition of an invalid, single-source proxy that would have set even higher prices

3) Require the PUC to respect competitive bidding procedures and to stop relying on stale data when figuring avoided costs. t

Lori A. Burkhart is an associate legal editor of PUBLIC UTILITIES FORTNIGHTLY.

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