PJM would dictate grid expansion, even if not needed for reliability, and then push the cost of the upgrades on those who use them the most.

Chairman Pat Wood and his Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) may well have given up on attempts to impose a standard market design (SMD) on the electric utility industry, but that doesn't mean the nation's grid system operators won't try the same thing.

The sound and fury over trading scandals, credit defaults, and market manipulation so far has drowned out much of the mind-numbing debate over a standard market design (SMD), and rightly so. Utilities understand (as does the press) that Enron, "Deathstar," and "Get Shorty" will always sell more newspapers than locational pricing or congestion management.

Asset optimization is a favored utility strategy in an economic downturn.

Generation plant construction has gone down with the economy. "Our project finance pipeline is as dry as I have seen it," says energy analyst Jerry Pfeffer of Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom, speaking at a recent energy conference in New Orleans. He predicts it will take at least a year or two until new construction starts up again in any significant manner.

Demand Response: Keep It Market- Based

 

 

News Analysis

 

New England puts a price on electric reliability, but some say the charge looks more like a tax.

Does ICAP qualify as a true commercial product, traded on its own merit with a tangible value for customers?

1 "Load-serving entities" are firms that serve retail electricity customers. These firms include utilities and power marketers.

2 See L.D. Kirsch, "ISO Economics: How California Flubbed It on Transmission Pricing", Public Utilities Fortnightly, Oct. 15, 1998, p. 24.

3 See J.E. Bowring and R.E. Gramlich, "The Role of Capacity Obligations in a Restructured Pennsylvania-New Jersey-Maryland Electricity Market", Electricity Journal, November 2000, pp. 57-67.

News Digest

 

News Digest