California Dreaming: Will FERC's Plan Work?

Deck: 
And even if it does, it probably won't.
Fortnightly Magazine - February 15 2001
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1 Staff Report to the Federal Energy Commission on Western Markets and the Causes of the Summer 2000 Price Abnormalities—Part 1, Nov. 1, 2000 (Staff Report), p. 6-1.

2 Order Directing Remedies For California Wholesale Electric Markets, . Note that while FERC recognizes that siting matters and retail demand response programs reside within exclusive state jurisdiction, FERC urges state officials to take certain actions in these areas.

3 Order Proposing Remedies For California Wholesale Electric Markets, , p. 3.

4 The pre-restructuring average embedded generation cost component of California IOU rates were about $74 per megawatt-hour. See Dec. 15, 2000 at p. 27.

5 For simplicity, let's assume that the pre-restructuring estimated generation cost of around 7 cents per kilowatt-hour would have prevailed; a 10 percent savings represents about $7 per megawatt-hour.

6 FERC Staff Report, p. 6-1.

7 FERC Order, Dec. 15, 2000, at p. 25.

8 Throughout this paper, I define summer as calendar months June, July, August, and September. These data can be found at the California ISO website.

9 For California, I show the months of June-September, 2000. For PJM, I use June-September, 1999 in an effort to include hot weather impacts that simply did not occur in the Northeast during summer 2000.

10 This discussion is taken from "Investments," by Bodie, Kane and Marcus, Richard D. Irwin, Inc., 1989, pp. 648 - 651.

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