allow choice between price, reliability, and scheduling.
Customers with a choice are demanding, and getting, lower electric bills. These customers generally include municipals and large industrials. Municipals, as wholesalers, gained access to alternative suppliers via the Energy Policy Act of 1992.
On November 8, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) approved a major rate settlement on pipeline corrosion issues for the owners of the Trans Alaska Pipeline Systems (TAPS), based on a November 1994 agreement in principle among the parties. The settlement results from an alternate dispute resolution (ADR) technique that employed a mini-trial and involved high-level representatives for all parties.
When economic reformers in the old Soviet Union searched for a metaphor to describe their move to a market economy, they a spoke of a horseman jumping a ditch. The true test of a strategy was that it carried you to the other side. It was no time for half-measures.
Electric utility regulators face a similar challenge.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has authorized the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) to load fuel and perform low-power testing of the Watts Bar nuclear plant. The low-power license will allow the 1,160-megawatt Unit 1 to operate at 5 percent of capacity. The license verifies that Watts Bar construction is complete, and that all safety and environmental requirements have been met. A license to operate at full power may be granted once the fuel loading and low-power testing is complete. Commercial operation is anticipated for spring 1996.
Deregulate in haste; repent at leisure. That's what they say about love, marriage, and ratemaking. Yet, in the utility business the regrets are pouring in (em sometimes from the same people who sent out the invitations.
For example, at the end of November, a week before I put fingers to keyboard, the FERC was shocked to discover that the proposed Altus merger between The Washington Water Power Co. and Sierra Pacific Power Co.
The United States Enrichment Corp. (USEC), after consulting with the U.S. Treasury Department, has selected investment bankers for its proposed privatization. The Energy Policy Act of 1992 called for USEC to prepare two paths to privatization: an IPO and a negotiated mergers and acquisition transaction with a third party. USEC supplies 86 percent of the domestic uranium enrichment market, and 37 percent of the world market.
Based on competitive bidding, Morgan Stanley & Co., Inc. has been chosen as transaction manager.
