Transmission

People

Nancy Schultz was promoted to engineering and construction services director at Transcontinental Gas Pipe Line Corp. She joined Transco in 1982.

Columbia Energy Services has hired Greg Davis at its Pittsburgh office. He previously worked for the Natural Gas Clearinghouse and Exxon Corp.

James S. Thomson has joined Consolidated Natural Gas Co. as president of its new subsidiary, CNG International Corp. He last worked at Edison International's Mission Energy Co.

Westinghouse Electric Corp. has promoted Randy H.

Electric Reform in Great Britain: An imperfect Model.

First came the Pool, with its faults and virtues.

Now comes a wave of troubling takeovers.

What happens when retail supply opens up?

Much of the pressure to reform the electricity supply industry in the United States assumes that the United Kingdom's electricity experiment offers a proven model.

Texas Utility Pushes Pooling

Central and South West Corp.'s subsidiary, Central Power and Light Co. (CPL), has proposed that all ERCOT nonnuclear utilities (em including IPPs, co-ops, and municipals (em become part of a competitive wholesale bulk power pool run by an independent system operator (ISO).

Transmission and distribution companies would continue to own and operate power lines, purchase all nonnuclear generation from the pool, and assume responsibility for actual delivery.

Joules

The Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) plans to take its first-ever private company partner to convert the Bellefonte Nuclear Plant. The two-unit plant, near Hollywood, AL, will likely be finished as a gas-fired facility. The decision not to complete the units as nuclear plants ended a 28-year policy of nuclear construction at TVA.

South Carolina Electric & Gas Co. began operating its $411-million, 385-Mw Orangeburg County plant January 15.

Pending the approval of state regulators, Puget Sound Power & Light Co. and Washington Energy Co.

NEES Proposes Transmission Sub

The New England Electric System (NEES) has filed with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) and the Securities and Exchange Commission for authority to separate

generation and transmission, and to create a

transmission subsidiary called NEES Transmission Services, Inc. NEES Transmission has filed proposed transmission tariffs at the FERC that would give its wholesale customers, including New England Power Co.

FERC: "High-Low" Gas Pricing Prevents Gaming

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) has approved Texas Eastern Transmission Corp.'s (TET) proposed revisions of its monthly imbalance cash-out mechanism (Docket No. RP96-142-000).

TET had asserted in February that its monthly imbalance mechanism enabled shippers to game the cash-out mechanism during the recent rapid and large price fluctuations in the spot gas market.

Perspective

Since the federal Court of Appeals decision in the Calvert Cliffs case over 25 years ago, no power plant may be built without a thorough socioeconomic impact statement. Yet, schemes to alter the entire supply system of a state - or even the nation - are currently proposed with only cursory attention to socioeconomic consequences.

Mailbag

Genco Risk: "Location, Location, Location"Vinod Dar's recent article, "Competition, Convergence . . . and Cashflow? The Power Business in the Next 20 Years" (Apr. 1, 1996, p. 31), highlighted some of the risks inherent in investments in new power generation plants in a restructured electric industry.