The "duty to connect" demands definition - such as the optimal investment in local wires, and who should pay for it.
As the electric utility industry continues its slow but inexorable transformation into a more "competitive" industry, there has been a notable absence of discussion concerning continued regulation of local distribution utilities, or discos.
PUCs turn their attention to what they can still control.
The battleground has shifted. Utilities that last year worried about winning customers in pilot programs for retail choice now face public audits on the reliability of transmission and distribution.
With rate cases in remission, no nukes on order and generation planning left to the market, public utility commissions are turning their attention to what they can still regulate. That means service quality. Nor are PUCs the only ones involved.
Micro maverick Bill Althouse sees a grand conspiracy to blot out customer-owned generation.
Distributed generation is out of the box. It's time for regulators to wake up. The paradigm has already shifted."
That's Bill Althouse talking, president of Althouse Inc. of Albuquerque, N.M., a seat-of-the pants business (he says he's near bankruptcy) that helps homeowners and businesses install on-site generation. I met him via email as I researched why, on Jan.
Deregulation, you say? We still haven't seen any.
Let's begin with a quiz. We'll use the multiple-choice format, developed at the University of Wisconsin during the 1960s to address overcrowding caused by the World War II "baby boom." Choose only one of the following 10 possible answers. Be careful. It's tougher than it looks.
Question: What is meant by the term electric restructuring?
A. To provide all consumers with retail access to multiple "energy" providers.
B. To separate the ownership of power generation from other functions.
C.
Albert V. Ruggiero was elected vice president for South Jersey Industries Inc. Ruggiero also serves as senior vice president, corporate development for SJI's principal subsidiary, South Jersey Gas Co.
The Bonneville Power Administration announced four new senior vice president positions. Harvey Spigal will return to general counsel after heading BPA's transmission functions for the past two years. BPA's corporate group will be headed by Steve Wright. Paul Norman was named permanent head of the power business line. Mark Maher will head the transmission business line on an acting basis.
The post-mortems on last summer's price spikes in the Midwest are in. At least three studies of the event diverge in their conclusions:
First, on Sept. 24 of last year, the staff of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission found the root cause of the spikes in extreme weather and unexpected outages. It observed no direct evidence of market manipulation and concluded that the events were unlikely to recur.
Mary L. Schapiro, president and member of the board of the National Association of Securities Dealers Regulation Inc., or NASDR, was appointed to the Cinergy Corp. board of directors. Schapiro will fill the vacancy resulting from the retirement of Van P. Smith, chairman of Ontario Corp.
U.K. electricity regulator OFFER (Office of Electricity Regulation) appointed Brian Saunders, Ph.D., a member of the Electricity Pool, to head the Department of Trade and Industry/OFFER team to reform electricity trading.
New Mexico's PUC goes down in flames.
This story has everything: politics, favoritism, a stock price crash, extortion (a long-ago crime by a certifiable nut), a utility rate case (I love'em), Ivy League economists (like moths to a flame), and finally, a last minute stay of execution, perhaps saving the utility from default on its revolving line of credit. Heck, even Enron's involved.
What's missing, however, is a clear understanding of who the good guys are.
As utility takeovers break new ground, the FERC ponders proposed rules, perhaps already out of date.
A year ago, when U.S. Antitrust Czar Joel Klein talked of a "window of opportunity" for electric utility mergers, he didn't predict when it would close.
And it hasn't yet.
In the 12 months leading up to January 1998, when Klein had addressed the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission through its "Distinguished Speakers" series, only the ill-timed Primergy deal had been turned down. The next year, 1998, would prove no different.
Auctioning gas imbalances offers advantages over bidding on available pipeline capacity.
In a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking issued last summer, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission proposed a series of auctions for all unutilized short-term rights in pipeline capacity, with the most frequent auction being for transmission rights for the next day. All transporters and the pipeline would be required to release available short-term capacity rights to be auctioned. (See FERC Docket RM98-10-000, Regulation of Short-term Nat. Gas Transp.