Moody's Investors Service has concluded that a properly structured securitization backed by the future cash flow from a utility's stranded investments can achieve a credit rating higher than the rating of the senior debt of the utility.
Moody's said this ability bodes well for the increasing number of investor-owned utilities expected to issue up to $75 billion of such securities by 2000 to recover uneconomic investments.
In a court-ordered auction held March 19, a federal bankruptcy court judge selected a proposal by LG&E Energy Corp. to lease the generating assets of Big Rivers Electric Corp.
LG&E Energy will lease about $1.3 billion of the generating assets of the bankrupt Henderson, Ky., cooperative for 25 years, and provide power to Big Rivers to serve its member cooperatives and 90,000 customers.
Previously, it appeared PacifiCorp would get the lease agreement, which is the centerpiece of the Big Rivers' reorganization plan. But U.S. District Judge Jennifer B.
A senior staff member of the Oregon Public Utilities Commission has informed Portland General Corp. and Enron Corp. that the PUC plans to recommend disapproval of the proposed merger between the two utilities.
The decision will run in the staff's final report, which is expected to be released April 11. "We are not trying to kill the merger," said Phil Nyegaard, PUC staff member.
The staff believes that Enron's offer of $61 million in guaranteed cost savings and rate reductions does not provide sufficient benefits to meet the mandates for merger approval.
Nine Southwestern electric utilities are investigating the feasibility of establishing a regional independent system operator.
The Desert Southeastern Transmission and Reliability Operator (Desert STAR) would be the name of the new ISO. Initial members would include: Arizona Electric Power Co-op; Arizona Public Service Co., El Paso Electric Co., Nevada Power Co., Public Service Co. of New Mexico, Salt River Project, Texas-New Mexico Power Co., Tucson Electric Power Co., and the Western Area Power Administration's Desert Southwest Region.
In an unprecedented act of unity, all 52 members of the California Congressional Delegation have written to the U.S.
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission recently gave final approval to a two-year experiment to track electricity as it travels over transmission lines (Docket No. ER97-697-000).
The experimental program, approved March 25, finalizes work proposed by a group of seven companies working independently on the General Agreement on Parallel Paths (GAPP). Other GAPP members had chosen to disband the formal GAPP committee in 1995.
The program calls for information on transmission paths to be made available electronically to all participants.
California's three largest investor-owned electric utilities have submitted their proposals to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission for implementing an independent system operator and power exchange for the state's restructured electric industry (Docket Nos. EC96-19-001 and ER96-1663-001).
Last November, the FERC had conditionally approved an "acceptable framework" submitted by Pacific Gas & Electric Co., San Diego Gas & Electric Co., and Southern California Edison (the trustee for the ISO and PX is S.
The Minnesota Legislature is poised to pass a bill that would allow the state to take full advantage of any relief granted by federal courts in pending cases over the U.S. Department of Energy's nuclear waste disposal obligations.
State Senator Steve Murphy and state Representative Steve Timble introduced the legislation, which has support in both Houses. The legislation was introduced to ensure that state ratepayers would see immediate relief if ordered by federal courts in pending cases in the next several months.
New England Electric System has received preliminary proposals from 25 potential buyers for the purchase of its generation business.
The proposals, which were due March 25, are from utility affiliates, independent power producers, and energy companies.
New England Electric System noted that buyers would gain an immediate presence in the regional energy market, which opens to competition in mid-1997 for some Rhode Island customers, and in January 1998 for Massachusetts and New Hampshire customers.