Cutting employees
may be less than healthy, unless you're ready to replace them with technology.
As competition intensifies, increasing numbers of executives are realizing that...
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Off Peak
Everybody's got an opinion on electric competition, and they're dying to be asked.
Last year the Colorado Public Utilities Commission opened Docket No. 96Q-313E, In the Matter of the Inquiry Into Electric Utility Industry Restructuring. Then, after weighing several options, and rather than preempt the policy discussion, the PUC mailed a 26-page questionnaire to 360 people identified as "having an interest" in electric utility issues, including investor-owned electric utilities, rural electric cooperatives, municipal utilities and others.
What it learned could fill a book ....
On reaching Utopia ...
"There is a fine thread which runs through the questionnaire which appears to seek our view on what we can best to for mankind and how to construct utopia. As isolated and naive as we may be, the concept of gathering ideas on constructing zoning laws and a road plan for the Holy City seem to be somewhat beyond our reach."
(em White River Electric Association
The small customer ...
"In the short term it is likely that residential customers will pay higher rates."
(em Denver Water Department
Stranded investment ...
"Stranded costs are a particularly difficult problem for the cooperatives ... because the ratepayers and the owners are one and the same. There is no ability to let the stockholders 'eat' the stranded investment." (em Y-W Electric Association
Q. Do you believe that there is any stranded investment cost for Colorado utilities?
A. "Yes. I CAN SEE POWER PLANTS, WHICH I ASSUME ARE NOT FULLY PAID FOR, OUTSIDE MY WINDOW." (em Coastal Electric Services Co.
On Mergers ...
"The danger, which is already apparent with just the threat of restructuring, is that large utilities will merge together across the country (Colorado included) to form a few gargantuan utilities that will completely drive out all small utilities and independent power producers. This is completely contrary to the aim of restructuring." (em SciTech Communications
On Fairness ...
Q. Are there specific consumer classes ... [that] may be put at special risk due to potential increases in retail electric rates?
A. "I thought that the idea was to achieve lower rates, not increase." (em United Power
Real-time meters ...
Q. Are existing metering systems capable of meeting the requirements imposed by retail generation and competition?
A. "Yes. Existing metering systems can initially be used in a retail customer choice environment. It may be unnecessary to require each customer to have real time meters especially if power merchants are licensed to aggregate the loads of smaller customers. Given the retail choice experiments in this country and the open generation markets off-shore in other countries, meter technology is continually advancing. It will be in a suppliers' interests to ensure that appropriate metering is available to provide the services demanded by their customers."
(em Brubaker & Associates
On change ...
"[R]adical change in the retail electric industry in Colorado is not coming from the customers dissatisfied with rates or service, but it is being advanced by 'market ideologues' who preach the gospel that competitive markets will always ... work the best for consumers. Coalition members from rural areas of
