Two power pools (em one existing, the other inchoate (em have announced that they will file tariffs to price electric transmission as the difference in spot prices in the generation and consuming markets.
A unique force of 25 environmental and energy/utility companies have joined together and filed comments on the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) Notice of Proposed Rulemaking on open-access electric transmission (Mega-NOPR), and the subsequent draft environmental impact statement (EIS), asking the FERC to mitigate the air-pollution impact of plans to promote wholesale electric competition and open access to utility transmission lines.
The parties urge the FERC to link its open-access policy with an environmental strategy that reduces air pollution at the g
(telecommunications, environment).
State utility commissioners have gone on record asking Congress to "call them first" before it legislatively restructures the electric industry.
That resolution prompted some of the liveliest debate at the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners' (NARUC) Winter Committee meetings. About 1,000 people attended the 10-day event in Washington, DC, February 21 to March 1.
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) on January 24 held a technical conference on independent system operators (ISOs) and power pools, as part of its electric transmission open-access Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NOPR). The FERC's question: Is it necessary in a competitive market for utilities to transfer control over transmission facilities to ISOs, and if so, what form should ISOs take? (18 CFR Part 35, Docket Nos. RM95-8-000 and RM94-7-001).
Divest yourself of generating plants or allow retail sales by competitors, and PURPA's mandatory purchase clause in section 210 will no longer hold.
That's the basic deal to be offered to investor-owned electric utilities under the Electric Power Competition Act of 1996 (H.R. 2929), a new bill to amend the Public Utility Regulatory Policies Act (PURPA) introduced by Rep. Edward J.
On a bookshelf behind my desk I've stacked up a few older issues of PUBLIC UTILITIES FORTNIGHTLY. Some of them go back more than a half-century. Every so often I pull down a copy to see if I can learn anything from history.
Yes, the advertisements appear quaint (Royal typewriters; IBM punch-card machines; Ditto-brand duplicators). But some of the ideas still have legs, with lively quotations from the likes of Louis Brandeis, Harold Ickes, Walter Lippmann, and Fiorello La Guardia.
Competition from Order 636 has gas customers rethinking their firm capacity options.
Just when everyone thought we had put Order 636 behind us, up pops perhaps our greatest challenge yet: the turnback (or "decontracting") of firm capacity on interstate natural gas pipelines. This phenomenon, now emerging on a few major pipelines, such as Transwestern, El Paso, and Natural Gas Pipeline Co. of America, inspires different reactions.
You've heard talk lately about the convergence of electricity and natural gas. That idea has grown as commodity markets have matured for gas and emerged for bulk power.
But some economists take a different view. They see the real convergence occurring between electricity and telecommunications. I'm not talking about the "smart house" or fiber-to-the-whatever. Instead, how is the product is created?
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) has issued an order denying rehearing, effectively allowing Mojave Pipeline Co. (MP) to construct and operate its Northward Expansion Facilities in California (Docket No. CP93-258-007). The FERC has already issued five substantive orders in the proceeding.
Especially contentious was the clash with the California Public Utility Commission (CPUC) over jurisdiction, leading to a February 1995 FERC order holding that the Northward Expansion was an interstate pipeline subject to federal oversight.