A Vision for Trasmission: How the RTOs Stand

Deck: 
And where the trouble spots lie in FERC's grid plan.
Fortnightly Magazine - August 2002
This full article is only accessible by current license holders. Please login to view the full content.
Don't have a license yet? Click here to sign up for Public Utilities Fortnightly, and gain access to the entire Fortnightly article database online.


And where the trouble spots lie in FERC's grid plan.

The mood appeared calm on June 26 in Washington, D.C., at the regular bi-weekly meeting of the U.S. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC). Key officials from various regional transmission organizations (RTOs) had gathered before chairman Pat Wood and the other commissioners to brief them on progress over the past year in reforming wholesale electric markets, and on what the FERC might expect in the summer at hand.

There was little hint of the fight playing out around the country on the very structure of those same RTOs-a fight that has tied the grid in knots-even as the date grew near when the FERC was expected to announce a new standard market design (SMD) for the transmission network.

Joseph E. Bowring, manager of PJM's market monitoring unit, voiced confidence.

"The markets worked effectively," he said, speaking of calendar year 2001.

"Not perfectly, but effectively."

A similar view emerged from Robert Ethier, manager of market monitoring and mitigation for ISO New England (ISO-NE), who saw markets in his region as "workably competitive."

He even bragged that ISO-NE was adding generation capacity faster than PJM. It was "investor exuberance," he said, that had left New England with forecasts that reserve margins through 2006 would double those that prevailed from 1999 to 2001.

California, of course, was not so confident. Anjali Sheffrin, director of market analysis for the California ISO (CAISO), warned that the market "still remained fundamentally frail." She cautioned that CAISO remained dependent on imports for 20 percent of supply.

This full article is only accessible by current license holders. Please login to view the full content.
Don't have a license yet? Click here to sign up for Public Utilities Fortnightly, and gain access to the entire Fortnightly article database online.