Let's hope that by now we all prefer market solutions to government mandates. Markets are generally more efficient and equitable. Recent experiences with deregulation for airlines and telecommunications have vindicated Adam Smith's notion that the "invisible hand" can prove superior to regulation.
Unfortunately, this knowledge offers little comfort today to natural gas pipelines (em even to those companies not saddled with a surplus of transportation capacity.
The eight utility
owners of the 560-megawatt Connecticut Yankee nuclear plant have decided to shut down the facility rather than make expensive repairs estimated at over $100 million, after having estimated plant costs at five cents per kilowatt-hour, or about 20-50 percent above the cost of replacement power.
Northeast Utilities, a 49-percent owner, said it would lay off about two-thirds of the plant's 322 employees. Other plant owners include Boston Edison, New England Electric System, the Cambridge Light Co., and Eastern Utilities Associates. t
Lori A.
Nevada Power Co. (NP) has announced a tentative agreement for the largest rate reduction in its history, reflecting lower purchased power prices, lower overall fuel costs, and improvements in efficiency.
Idaho Power Co. (IP) has joined with Intermountain Gas Co., U S WEST, and TCI Cable in the Joint Utilities Trench Program, which places electric, gas, and telecommunications, wires, cables, pipes, and conduits into a single trench rather than individual trenches for each service provider.
The arrangement applies to new residential and commercial subdivisions, apartment complexes, and residential services. By using a single, joint trench, developers expect to reduce overall installation time for electric, gas, and telephone service in a new subdivision by as much as 70 percent.
Southern California Gas Co. (SCG) has begun using monthly forecasts to set prices for its core commercial and industrial natural gas customers, ending the practice of forecasting gas costs more than one year in advance and then computing the bill using a projected, annual weighted-average cost of gas (WACOG).
Monthly gas pricing is expected for residential customers when the California PUC reaches a decision in SCG's Biennial Cost Allocation Proceeding.
Commonwealth Electric Co. (CE) has postponed an electric retail pilot program for five industrial customers, fearing that market prices could run 5-percent higher than what the participants pay under regulation. Last summer, CE had predicted that program participants could save 15 percent off their electric bills.
CE and its consultant, Koch Energy Services Inc., attributed the jump in market prices to concern about possible power shortages follwing a shutdown of four nuclear power plants in New England.
The California Public Utilities Commission has approved an interim competitive transition charge (CTC) for Pacific Gas & Electric Co. (PGE), effective until the PUC adopts a permanent, industry-wide CTC.
PG&E would collect the charge (39 percent of the current bundled rate) from any customer existing its system before January 1, 1998, the start of electric competition in California.
PG&E spokesman Tony Ledwell said less than a dozen customers had indicated they would attempt to leave the PG&E system early.
The Consumer Choice Partnership, backed by Central Illinois Light Co. (CILCO), has unveiled a set of "principles" to send to Illinois legislators in hopes of encouraging legislation to bring electric competition in Illinois as soon as possible, for all customer classes, with limited recovery of transition costs.
CILCO is the state's only major utility not to back a bill introduced last November (proposed by the Illinois Coalition for Responsible Electricity Choice) that would phase-in retail choice through 2005.
Massachusetts-based New England Electric System (NEES) plans to sidetrack possible opposition by offering first rights to firm service on a proposed 25-mile electric transmission line to any potential users who will support the line during its permitting phase.
The new line, a 600-megawatt, high-voltage, direct-current (HVDC) submarine transmission cable from Connecticut to Long Island, would begin and end on utility property, requiring no new land takings and presumably raising few environmental issues.
The Board of Trustees of the Western Systems Coordinating Council (WSCC) has endorsed a new reliability compact that would require mandatory compliance and enforcement of established electric system reliability protocols in the Western U.S.
WSCC said it is taking a leadership role in overhauling the existing "voluntary" reliability management process and replacing it with a new framework to strengthen the roles, responsibilities, and authorities of WSCC and the North American Electric Reliability Council (NERC).