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Fortnightly Magazine - May 1 1996

Outsourcing Fleet Management: Boon or Bust?

To an outsourcing company, offering services to utilities to manage their motor vehicle fleets may seem like a simple economic proposition. "We can do it better and cheaper," the outsourcers say.

But it's not that easy. Thorny issues arise (em in economics, quality, administration, and labor relations. And they must be faced head on.

Few utilities today have avoided outsourcing one function or another in the effort to cut costs. Some utilities have been burned.

Byline: 
Joseph F. Schuler, Jr.
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Transportation Banking Refined by LDC

The West Virginia Public Service Commission (PSC) has authorized Mountaineer Gas Co. to set up a method to compensate interruptible transportation customers for "banked" over-deliveries eventually used by other sales customers. The company historically permitted its transportation customers to bank excess volumes, and used the gas to reduce purchases for sales customers.

Under the new method, the company will buy current and future banked supplies at a "market determined" rate.

Byline: 
Phillip S. Cross
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Leave it to the Experts

As utilities refocus resources on their core business, they are developing strategic partners to manage day-to-day support services more efficiently. Operational functions that received scant notice in the past are now identified as areas for big savings.

Transportation services mark one such area. Activities like vehicle acquisition, resale, maintenance, fueling, and routine administration are now widely viewed as outsourcing opportunities (em to reduce costs and enhance productivity.

Byline: 
Peter Pequignot
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Appeals Court Holds FP&L Immune From QF Antitrust Complaints

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit has ruled that Florida Power and Light Co. (FP&L) is protected by the state action immunity doctrine from liability to cogenerators (QFs) for alleged antitrust violations. The QFs had claimed that FP&L violated federal antitrust laws when it refused to wheel their power to offsite end users.

Byline: 
Phillip S. Cross
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Restructuring: It's Not Unpatriotic Anymore

Consumer advocates, utility chiefs, regulators, and analysts offered conflicting visions of retail competition's future at NASUCA's 1996 Capitol Hill Conference.

The National Association of State Consumer Advocates ( NASUCA) conference, "Restructuring the Electric Industry: What Are the Costs and Benefits to Consumers?," was held on February 29 and March 1 in the Rayburn House Office Building. The event was co-sponsored by Rep.

Byline: 
Joseph F. Schuler, Jr.
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Appeals Court Upholds Retail Sales by QF

A New York appeals court has upheld a 1994 decision by the New York Public Service Commission (PSC) authorizing a qualifying cogeneration facility (QF) to make retail sales to certain industrial customers in the service territory of a retail electric utility. The PSC had authorized Sithe/ Independence Power Partners L.P. (em developers of a 1040-megawatt natural gas fired QF (em to sell electricity to steam host customers Alcan Rolled Products Co. and Liberty Paperboard L.P. See, Re Sithe/Independence Power Partners L.P., 155 PUR4th 149 (N.Y.P.S.C. 1994).

Byline: 
Phillip S. Cross
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Columbia Gas System Expands into New Era

Columbia Gas Transmission Corp. and Columbia Gulf Transmission Co., the interstate natural gas pipeline subsidiaries of The Columbia Gas System, Inc., have a new chief executive officer (CEO), Catherine Good Abbott, as well as plans for an ambitious expansion. The project and the CEO mark the beginning of a new era for a once-troubled pipeline system that recently emerged from bankruptcy.

Byline: 
Lori A. Burkhart
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Off Peak

Will deregulation spell the end of utility philanthropy? Not necessarily so, according to a new study

of charitable giving at 11 investor-owned electric utilities from across the country.

Of those companies surveyed, one pegged its charitable contributions budget as a percent of revenue. Some indicated that they

followed the "utility average" of giving 0.5 percent of income before taxes. (The national average for all companies is 0.9 percent.) Four utilities reported donations at or above that figure.

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