Liberalisation of the electricity markets in the UK and Scandinavia has driven merger activity in these territories. This was evident in 1996 with U.S. companies taking over MEB, East Midlands Electricity and Northern Electric, with London Electricity likely to follow in early 1997.
The Virginia State Corporation Commission (SCC) has directed Virginia Electric and Power Co., a subsidiary of Dominion Resources, Inc., to adopt conflict-of-interest standards to govern board of director membership. The SCC also directed the utility to file an annual independent audit of its affiliate transactions and to cooperate with commission staff in determining whether "Virginia Power is paying for duplicative executive services" from its holding company parent. The action grows out of an SCC investigation into a 1994 public dispute between the utility and Dominion Resources.
Dominion Resources, Inc. (DRI) has asked the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) to declare its proposed "impacted megawatt mile (IMM)" tariff a just and reasonable method of pricing transmission service.
The IMM tariff would base electric transmission prices on the actual flows that result from each transmission service, taking account of the size and distance of power flows on all affected lines, the direction of the flows, line loadings, and the costs of relieving any congestion.
In thinking about transmission pricing for a competitive electric industry, we should remember that the fundamental objective of competition is to increase economic efficiency. Improved economic efficiency, after all, leads to better use of resources, lower costs, and long-term benefits for consumers.
The Virginia Corporation Commission has approved an $8.3-million repayment by Virginia Power (VP) for excessive fuel costs resulting from a 1991 coal-hauling contract with CSX Transportation Inc. The contract became the focus of attention during a dispute last year between the utility and its corporate parent, Dominion Resources, Inc. (DRI).
Commission staff found in a January report that DRI chairman and CEO Thomas E. Capps had pressured VP into the contract, which was expected to benefit the company.
On a purely intellectual level, it is difficult to justify the Public Utility Holding Company Act of 1935 (PUHCA). Sixty years after passage, PUHCA has become an anachronism (em a fact well articulated in comments filed in response to the Concept Release on the modernization of the Act issued last November by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).1 More recently, the SEC's Division of Investment Management actually recommended a conditional repeal (see sidebar).
Virginia Corporation Commission staff have discovered that Virginia Power Co. (VP) customers overpaid $11 million for fuel under a renegotiated coal-hauling contract with CSX Transportation. Without corrective action, VP would continue to bill ratepayers for excessive fuel payments through 2000, when the contract expires.
The interim consultant's report on the Dominion Resources/Virginia Power (DRI/VP) merger identifies problems with the holding company structure.
DRI/VP claim that the report's corporate structure recommendations conflict substantially with their settlement agreement, and appear to impose unique and extraordinary constraints on corporate governance.
Competition in electricity is part of a general trend toward deregulation (em from airlines to stock markets (em that characterized economic evolution in much of the western world during the 1980s. The move to liberalize electricity in some countries has been spurred on by the disenchantment of politicians and large customers with the traditional monopolistic arrangements. Monopoly not only prevented customer choice, but was increasingly seen as inefficient and paternalistic.