Make gas pipeline rights more fungible, but draw the line at contingent bidding.
Last July the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission proposed mandatory auctions to allocate all capacity rights shorter than one year's duration on interstate natural gas pipelines. (See RM98-10-000, Regulation of Short-term Natural Gas Transportation Services, FERC, July 29, 1998.) At a technical conference held Oct.
States earmark millions to fund solar projects via system benefits charges.
Making solar power a realistic choice for electric consumers is a burgeoning issue for state utility regulators. As part of electric restructuring, regulators are trying to finance the costs of solar installations.
Key to delivering commercial, on-grid solar power to new markets are state efforts, partnered with other government and industry actions. So far, the system benefits charge, or SBC, is the primary short-term incentive to develop solar, wind, biomass and other renewable resources.
With few regrets, a regulator steps down from the PUC, still touting his brand of electric competition.
I'm proud to have been an author of the first chapter of a book still being written.
Today's electric industry is more competitive, more reliable, more efficient, and more dynamic than it was six years ago when I joined the California Public Utilities Commission. However, the future of the industry has not been set. The steps taken over the next several years will determine the outcome of electric competition.
The FERC's latest idea throws pipelines for a loop, with implications for power markets, too.
Transmission and distribution (em the business they call "pipes and wires" (em can't last much longer with rates set by cost of service. Contrary to the myth, these services deserve no special status due to their high embedded costs. They carry no intrinsic value apart from the electrons and molecules they deliver.
No clear consensus has emerged. Should regulators hold to a hard line?
Regulators have wrestled for decades with transactions between vertically integrated monopoly utilities and their corporate affiliates.
Most problems have usually involved a shifting of costs, risk, or profit, as when an electric utility buys coal from a subsidiary. On the telephone side, AT&T's equipment dealings with Western Electric and Bell Labs were always a worry for regulators.
FERC
GAS PIPELINES. Noting a move toward shorter-term contracts since Order 636, the FERC on July 29 issued an "integrated package" of reform proposals for the natural gas pipeline industry: (1) specific measures in a notice of proposed rulemaking on short-term transportation (transactions shorter than one year); plus (2) an open-ended request for comments in a broader notice of inquiry. RM98-10-000, 84 FERC ¶61,985 [NOPR]; RM98- 12-000, 84FERC ¶61,087 NOI].
ENERGY SERVICE PROVIDERS ARE LISTED BY THE DOZENS on public utility commission Web sites, often with direct links to the companies themselves. Even so, picking out 10 to watch for their commercial and industrial activity isn't an easy task.
There's no reliable volume data. There's no organization rating the services each of these vendors offers. The ESPs themselves are either reticent about disclosing data or overly boastful. There's no ready apples-to-apples comparison of ESPs available for prospective C&I customers. Still, who is who among ESPs is a legitimate question.
TO DATE, RETAIL NATURAL GAS UNBUNDLING HAS proven to be only marginally successful. In political terms, state legislators and utility commissioners can point to significant progress in passing initiatives to mandate local utility unbundling. Many utilities have developed and won approval of new rate structures that enable small industrial, commercial and even residential customers to purchase natural gas from non-utility suppliers.
Business Wire
William Catacosinos has resigned as chairman of MarketSpan Corp., the utility formed to replace the troubled Long Island Lighting Co. Catacosinos is under investigation by the New York attorney general due to a $42-million severance payment as part of the buyout of LILCO by the New York government-run Long Island Power Authority (see Public Utilities Fortnightly, August 1998, p.28).
SCT Utility Systems Inc., signed a software and services agreement worth about $13 million with the city of Seattle for the BANNER Customer Management System.
NO MORE METER MONOPOLY?
So they say. Many believe that utility control over electric metering exerts a chilling effect on retail choice in energy. They claim that competitive energy service providers cannot earn a high-enough margin on the commodity alone, but must offer companion services - metering, billing and value-added options.
Yet the road to competitive metering is pitted with potholes. Utilities, ESPs and private meter vendors and manufacturers can be found arguing over a raft of issues.