An Editorial Response:

Some critics wants PMAs out of the electric business. But that could leave market power to a few, large monopolies.

Department of Energy Secretary Federico Peña observed in an address at the recent annual meeting of the Edison Electric Institute: "The [electric utility] industry is incredibly diverse, with investor-owned utilities, municipalities, cooperatives, the federal power system, independent power producers, marketers and others.

An interview with Ralph Masiello

and Sue Scott of ABB

The big, traditional projects in automated meter reading have really stalled, because utilities are no longer assured of a return on investment."

That warning comes from Ralph D. Masiello, vice president and general manager, ABB Power T&D Co. Inc., the leading manufacturer of electric meters in North America.

"We used to understand the economics of AMR. Just compare the cost of AMR against the cost of metering. But now the economics have changed.

Is it now worth the investment to install smart meters, complete with two-way communication?

The meter has always been the "cash register" in the basic operations of the utility business. Now it is also becoming a vital communications link, carrying information between a utility and its customers. The meter can supply information critical to customer retention and value-added marketing, as well as more effective system operations.

In choosing from among the wide range of metering options available today, a utility should find a technology that fits its business model.

Open-access tariffs hold the key to capturing the gains promised by electric restructuring.

In a restructured electric industry, unbundling the cost of the wires from power generation may well prove more important than dealing with stranded costs. In fact, stranded costs eventually will take care of themselves, whether by direct recovery, indirect recovery or no recovery. Without proper unbundling, however, a restructured industry could force competitors to pay inflated access fees to the distribution utility.

The matter has drawn a lot of attention.

Today's critics decry stranded costs, yet fail to cover their tracks.

Many of today's most vociferous critics of stranded cost recovery were once among the most ardent supporters of the nuclear plants they now disavow.

Back in the '70s, when electric utilities and regulators laid out their long-term plans, nuclear power played a leading role, and American industry largely concurred. Now, however, 20 years later, the business sector sings a new tune. "I told you so," the refrain goes.

The Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission has taken new steps in its ongoing effort to restructure the state's electric industry, proposing regulations to govern customer choice of energy suppliers and securitization of stranded costs.

The PUC's new actions on retail choice and stranded costs were designed to comply with state legislation passed last December, known as the Electricity Generation Customer Choice and Competition Act. See, 66 Pa.C.S. secs. 2801 et seq.

In fact, the PUC began last January to implement the new state legislation.

The Florida Public Service Commission has authorized Florida Power and Light Co. to set up a two-year green pricing research and development project under a settlement agreement between the utility and the state Legal Environmental Assistance Foundation.

The order allows FP&L to recover from all ratepayers up to $475,000 in administrative costs associated with the experiment. The commission had approved the program as proposed by the utility in an earlier ruling, but reviewed the matter further because of a complaint by LEAF.

The Oregon Public Utility Commission has directed U S WEST Communications Inc. to reduce rates by $97.4 million and to refund ratepayers an additional $102 million, after having excluded from rates some $4 million in executive bonuses and incentive pay plans for management.

The refund corrects interim rates left in effect last year when the commission had terminated an alternative rate plan, finding that service quality had dropped since 1991, and the incentive-based program had begun. See, Re U S WEST Communications, Inc., UT 80, Order No.

The Virginia State Corporation Commission has announced it will conduct a broad-based investigation into current earnings and rate structures of Virginia Electric and Power Co. in light of changes under way in the electric market. The commission's staff had found, as part of an annual earnings review, that the utility "is clearly in an overearnings position."

The staff observed that the company may have "potentially large levels of stranded costs" because of uneconomic power contracts with nonutility generators.

State regulators in New Jersey, New York and California have recently approved mergers of local exchange and long-distance telephone carriers operating within those states that are part of larger interstate and international consolidations.

NYNEX/Bell Atlantic. The New Jersey Board of Public Utilities has approved the merger of two major local-exchange carrier holding companies, NYNEX Corp. and Bell Atlantic Corp.