Commission Watch

Irregular seams affect ratemaking policies.

In a case that marks the first time the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission eliminated inter-RTO rate pancaking, the commission in late July issued an order terminating regional through-and-out rates (RTORs) charged by two regional transmission owners (RTOs)-Midwest Independent System Operator (MISO) and PJM Interconnection. The decision removes an estimated $250 million in yearly fees collected by those two entities.

Letters to the Editor / Corrections & Clarifications

To the Editor:

In a letter to the Oct. 1, 2003, , a letter from Lewis Evans and Kevin Counsell claims that a "pay-as-bid" day-ahead market would produce prices comparable to real-time prices even if loads understated their demand day-ahead, eliminating the incentive to underschedule (as allegedly happened in California).

People

New Positions:

The Nuclear Energy Institute elected Stephen R. Tritch and Mark F. McGettrick to its board of directors. Tritch is Westinghouse Electric Co. president and CEO, and McGettrick is president and CEO of generation at Dominion Energy.

Paul B. Vasington, former chairman of the Massachusetts Department of Telecommunications and Energy, joined the Analysis Group as vice president, based in the company's Boston office.

It would join an RTO but dictate the terms-a dangerous game that has the industry talking. When I talked a few months ago with AEP President and CEO Linn Draper Jr., he discussed how his company would have joined the PJM RTO in March were it not for the backlash he was getting from certain state regulators.

Commission Watch

The industry requires new analytical tools to incorporate the realities of today's higher risk operating and investment environment into the equity allowance process.

 

People

How to benchmark return on equity (ROE) and depreciation expense in utility rate cases.

 

Commission Watch

Why FERC must yield to bankruptcy law.

 

How will regulators react if the current trickle of bankruptcies within the debt-laden merchant power sector should suddenly become a torrent? Will they encourage the necessary restrcturing of debt, or will they stand in the way?

People

New Positions:

The Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission (PUC) appointed Thomas A. Leach to a two-year term on its Consumers Advisory Council. Leach is the business manager and financial secretary of Local Union 126, International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers.

Frontlines

The blackout could doom deregulation, but why treat reliability and reform as either-or?

Driving west near Cleveland on the Ohio Turnpike back in August, a few days after the big blackout, I saw what looked like a small helicopter hovering up ahead, about 25 feet from the top of a transmission tower.

Was this a prank? Had terrorists struck? Or was it the local TV news station, just trying to get a closer look?