Frontlines

Fortnightly Magazine - June 15 2000
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Frontlines

ISO Meltdown?

Some wanted to shut down New York's power markets. Then cooler heads prevailed.

I love it when ordinary electric customers take it straight to the regulators. Like what happened during that late spring East Coast heat wave, when some in the electric industry asked federal officials in Washington, D.C. in effect to shut down the New York ISO-suspending nascent "competitive" markets for trading energy, reserves, and ancillary services.

All it takes is some honesty and a moment or two to master the vocabulary.

Listen to Barbara Garr, assistant treasurer for Hammond & Irving of Auburn, N.Y., manufacturers of seamless rolled rings and open die forgings. "Rings are our specialty," it says right there on the H&I letterhead.

In her letter to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission dated May 4, Garr writes, "We are in a very competitive market and cannot accept any hint of price increases....We are concerned that current operation of the New York ISO endangers the competitive marketplace and, absent a safety net, prices will continue to be irrationally volatile."

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