This September, Pat Wood III completed his first year as chairman of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC). Some long-time FERC watchers gave Fortnightly some insights into how this chairman has performed so far, and what we might expect from him in the future.

How Competitive Metering Has Failed

 

 

News Digest

 

News Digest was compiled by Carl J. Levesque, editorial assistant, Lori A. Burkhart, contributing legal editor, and Bruce W. Radford, editor. For continual news updates, see www.pur.com.Nuclear Power

Transmission & ISOs

Transco Independence. Granting Entergy's request for a declaratory order, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission ruled in a case of first impression that a stand-alone transmission company ("transco") would meet the test in Order 888 for independent system operators despite passive ownership by a power producer or other market participant.

Deregulation, you say? We still haven't seen any.

Let's begin with a quiz. We'll use the multiple-choice format, developed at the University of Wisconsin during the 1960s to address overcrowding caused by the World War II "baby boom." Choose only one of the following 10 possible answers. Be careful. It's tougher than it looks.

Question: What is meant by the term electric restructuring?

A. To provide all consumers with retail access to multiple "energy" providers.

B. To separate the ownership of power generation from other functions.

C.

With few regrets, a regulator steps down from the PUC, still touting his brand of electric competition.

I'm proud to have been an author of the first chapter of a book still being written.

Today's electric industry is more competitive, more reliable, more efficient, and more dynamic than it was six years ago when I joined the California Public Utilities Commission. However, the future of the industry has not been set. The steps taken over the next several years will determine the outcome of electric competition.

WHY IS ELECTRICITY COMPETITION NOT WORKING? The principal reason is the failure of Order 888 to accommodate the economic and technological constraints of wholesale power markets.

Soon after Congress passed the Energy Policy Act of 1992, to give authority to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to compel electric utilities under its jurisdiction to wheel power for others, the FERC correctly recognized that piecemeal wheeling orders wouldn't work well without a tariff. A tariff would make the service quickly available to the user without the need for time-consuming negotiation.