EARLIER IN THIS DECADE, FERC CHAIRMAN MARTIN ALLDAY delivered his famous quote: "Everybody is somebody's native load customer."
Today, that truism has fallen under attack. It could go out the window if power marketers get their wish. One group of marketers has asked the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to open a new rulemaking on electric system reliability. This group proposes to end the notion of transmission responding to load.
ATTENDED ANY HEARINGS LATELY AT THE FEDERAL ENERGY Regulatory Commission? They're getting ugly. I see a federal agency under siege (em from without and from within.
The Commission seems to have lost the easy confidence that reigned during Elizabeth Moler's tenure. Don't blame new Chairman James Hoecker. He's getting it from all sides, and it's not his fault.
Consider the bottomless pit known as electric system "reliability." We need new laws to pin down FERC authority.
THE U.S. TREASURY DEPARTMENT HAS ISSUED RULES that will allow all public power systems to participate in independent system operators without risk of losing the tax-exempt status of their bonds.
Investor-owned utilities are not happy. According to the Edison Electric Institute, the regulations significantly expand the ability of large government-owned electric utilities to use federal subsidies to compete against private utilities.
Meanwhile, the American Public Power Association is pleased that the rules passed Jan.
WHEN LAST I HEARD, U.N. SECRETARY GENERAL Kofi Annan had reached agreement with Iraqi President Saddam Hussein on weapons inspections, staving off war. But the American Gas Association is still battling the electric industry and the U.S. Department of Energy to save market share for its gas-fired water heaters. This battle is serious.
The water heater war takes in a wide range of issues and players. I hear that ASHRAE (the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers), has raised gas industry ire with its new proposed standard 90.1.
CONSUMER FRAUD. The National Association of Attorneys
General, meeting Nov. 18 in Washington, D.C., to discuss electric restructuring, issued a warning to electric consumers on fraudulent schemes and abusive practices by scam artists. The warning encourages consumers to check their electric bills for unusual provider names or charges, and to avoid participating in contests that require a signature that can be used to switch an account.
RATE REDUCTION BONDS.
IN THE EARLY 1970s, WHEN THE "ENERGY CRISIS" DAWNED, New York told electric utilities to stop advertising to promote electric use. State judges deemed such promotion as lacking in "any beneficial content," or even "detrimental to society." It took an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court for utilities to win the right to tout their product.
Today's questions target the bottom line: Can advertising boost sales for energy suppliers? If so, what does it take?
NOx Joke
EPA Proposal Has IOUs Fuming
Electric utilities single-handedly to reduce smog.
MIDWEST AND OHIO VALLEY STATES ARE EXPECTED to get hit hardest by the Environmental Protection Agency's proposal to reduce smog.
Ohio, for example, is home to American Electric Power, one of the biggest contributors of NOx emissions at nearly a half million pounds per year (see chart).
The EPA proposed Oct. 10 that 22 states reduce nitrogen oxide (em a key element of smog (em citing electric utilities as the main source.
Rep. Dan Schaefer (R-Colo.) insists he intends to help enact federal customer choice legislation with a certain start date. The chair of the Subcommittee on Energy and Power made the pledge Sept. 24 at the panel's 20th hearing on electric restructuring. The hearing's focus was on state and federal roles in enacting competition.
Schaefer pointed out that the Edison Electric Institute seeks to avoid a federal mandate on retail access, yet members are going back to their states to throw a wrench into deliberations on, or implementation of, restructuring.
WHEN UTILITIES SAY THEY WILL "EXIT" THE generation business (em their stock in trade for the last 50 years (em what does that mean exactly? And what of those that plan to "concentrate" on transmission and distribution? Can you visualize a T&D utility? What would it look like? How many employees? How big a dividend? It's time to ponder these questions.
To the discomfort of my predilections, I cannot deny that which is just.
In the June 1 issue of PUBLIC UTILITIES FORTNIGHTLY, Ken Rose ("Securitization of Uneconomic Costs: Whom Does It Secure?" p.