1 Worse, new institutions such as the California ISO seem to believe falsely that their actions will not have serious spillover effects outside their immediate jurisdictional concerns. Electric utilities in neighboring states know that they indeed are affected by Cal-ISO pricing policy and terms of service.
2 .
STATE PUCS
Distributed Generation. In December and January the Illinois commission took comments from utilities, marketers, manufacturers, and trade and advocacy groups on how to develop policy on distributed generation.
* Rulemaking Strategy. Enron has urged the state to proceed in a fashion similar to the California PUC's
two-track investigation. It asked for two separate rulemakings on (1) interconnection standards for DG installations of 50 megawatts or less, and (2) rate design and operational issues.
* Unit Size Limits.
Do state regulators stand to learn more from their electric choice information programs than the customers they aim to reach?
What does it cost to educate an energy consumer about electric choice? Between $1.60 and $2.26, to judge by the public education campaigns in California, Pennsylvania and New Jersey.
In the first year of their information programs, these states spent a combined $103 million, funded through consumer rates. Though an impressive total budget for three public initiatives, that amount pales in comparison to the ad dollars spent by General Motors.
California again is the proving ground. Analysts see DG as the biggest issue since the PUC first mapped its "vision" for retail competition.
Federal and state interests clash as the FERC battles California over the future of the state's power exchange.
The California Power Exchange will not outlive its four-year mandate because it cannot compete with lower-cost exchanges, such as the New York Mercantile Exchange, Automated Power Exchange and low-cost over-the-counter brokers. So says Edward Cazalet, chief executive officer at Automated Power Exchange and chief rival of the CalPX.
As the FERC ponders RTO structure, California's incumbent PX defends its unique design.
The great California debate - what role and structure for a power exchange? - once again is rearing its head, this time on the national scene. The resurgence of interest in regional transmission organizations, or RTOs, spurred by the recent Notice of Proposed Rulemaking[fn.1] issued in May by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, raises questions about the relationship between RTOs (designed primarily to manage grid operations) and power exchanges (seen as vehicles to facilitate trading).
PUCs turn their attention to what they can still control.
The battleground has shifted. Utilities that last year worried about winning customers in pilot programs for retail choice now face public audits on the reliability of transmission and distribution.
With rate cases in remission, no nukes on order and generation planning left to the market, public utility commissions are turning their attention to what they can still regulate. That means service quality. Nor are PUCs the only ones involved.
Subsidiaries grapple with codes of conduct. Did regulators overreact?
PG&E Corp. has threatened to appeal - all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court if need be - a $1.68 million California Public Utilities Commission fine, slapped on it for violating affiliate rules.
The fine marked the loudest shot to date in what appears to be part two in the electric and gas restructuring wars:
The Affiliate Rules Wars.
These skirmishes promise to pit independent power marketers and out-of-state utility affiliates against the affiliates of incumbents.
AS NEW ENERGY VENTURES, LLC EXPLAINS IN ITS PROMOtional literature, it took a long time in California for electricity competition to move from the category of "wacky idea" to widespread acceptance.
But that was before the California electric market opened in April, and before NEV had formed its New Energy Buyers' Alliance, a consortium of clients for whom NEV buys wholesale energy. The alliance includes associations like the California Retailers Association, Western Growers Association and the Independent Colleges of Southern California.