Fortnightly Magazine - December 1996

GA PSC OKs Discount Contract

The Georgia Public Service Commission (PSC) has approved its first negotiated contract for discounted electric rates under an economic development incentive plan adopted in 1994.

Georgia Power Co. filed the contract in May after Olin Corp. announced it would relocate 100 manufacturing jobs to Tennessee unless the company could negotiate power rates.

Mass. Pins Telco Competition to TSLRIC

The Massachusetts Department of Public Utilities (DPU) has decided to use separate cost methods 1) to determine whether a local telephone service is subsidized, and to set price floors for essential monopoly services provided by NYNEX, a local exchange carrier (LEC); and 2) to set rates and price floors for competitive services.

According to the DPU, Total Service Long Run Incremental Cost (TSLRIC) was undisputed as the proper method of testing for subsidies between services.

Gov./ACC Squabble Over Arizona's Restructuring

Utilities in the Western Systems Coordinating Council, especially those in Arizona, found out last summer what it's like when 600,000 consumers lose power. This event, however, was just a warmup for the fireworks that followed and then promptly fizzled.

The outage prompted a series of highly publicized letters between Arizona's Republican Gov. Fife Symington and Renz Jennings, the Democratic chairman of the Arizona Corporation Commission (ACC), which has been investigating retail electric competition since 1994.

Idaho Reforms QF Rules

The Idaho Public Utilities Commission (PUC) has modified the method electric utilities must use to conduct avoided-cost negotiations with qualifying cogeneration facilities (QFs). A new interim standard for large QF projects (greater than 1 megawatt) calculates avoided costs based not on displaced purchases from a single, hypothetical power plant, but on information in the utility's resource plan.

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