Posted on 09/07/2001 6:05:15 PM PDT by Ernest_at_the_Beach
Greg Fishman, an ISO spokesman, said "there are times, this doesn't happen much, when because of varying ramp rates, we take a bid out of sequence, meaning when one plant has a bid of let's say $50 a megawatt-hour and another has a $60 bid, we may take the $60 bid because it would take longer to deliver the $50 power." Fishman said the "market is not working as it is designed to." "Since the demise of the California Power Exchange, we, the industry, have been forced to make the market function given the tools that we have," Fishman said. "The PX was a major portion of the market. Without it, we are left trying to put the market back into shape given the current players in the market." However, the ISO's federal tariff states that the agency must use the cheapest electricity available in the wholesale market before dispatching the more expensive electricity to generators and retail customers. "The ISO shall dispatch generating units...to meet its imbalance energy requirements based on order of energy bid prices," reads a section of the rules approved by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. "The ISO shall not discriminate between generating units, system units, loads and system resources other than based on price and the effectiveness (location and ramp rate) of the resource concerned to respond to the fluctuation in demand or generation." Fishman acknowledged that the "market is not working as it is designed to," but he said the ISO would not respond to specific questions related to the possibility that the agency has violated its federal tariff or other issues related to the operation of the ISO market. "We are looking into a variety of issues surrounding that dysfunction and in due course we will answer those issues," he said.
Agency Fails To Reveal Price Data For DWR Power
Moreover, the ISO has failed to disclose on its web site the price of the DWR power, which is also required under federal regulations. Jan Smutny-Jones, executive director of the Independent Energy Producers Association, a trade group representing large and small power producers, said there is "absolutely no transparency in the ISO market. No one knows what they're paying for." The DWR, which started buying power in lieu of California's ailing utilities in January, signed $43 billion in long-term supply contracts over the past six months at prices that now exceed the spot market price for electricity. The DWR at times has had a surplus of electricity and has sold some of it into the spot market at a $115 million loss over the last three months. As a result, the ISO has ordered the Mohave Generating Station, a coal-fired power plant in Nevada capable of producing electricity at roughly 2 cents a kilowatt-hour, to reduce output at the facility, Fishman said. The 1,500-megawatt Mohave unit is majority owned by Edison International (EIX, news, msgs) unit Southern California Edison. Fishman said last week that the ISO is investigating the circumstances that led the grid operator to order the units to "ramp down."
-By Jason Leopold, Dow Jones Newswires; 323-658-3874; jason.leopold@dowjones.com
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The House That Gray-out Built shows another crack. And the presence of yet more "secrets"...
I'll post another item shortly that ....!
fools. don’t you know laws don’t apply to socialists?
Or should I say keeps turning over rocks and finding these little morsels that /Davis would rather us not know about!
If I read this correctly, the ISO spokesman says the ISO is investigating the ISO's actions. Hmmmm, I don't think I'll hold my breath for the ISO to publish its findings.
My own findings are that Governor Doofus is a socialist weasel who would no longer be in office if the sheeple of California had half the wits of the generation living when this country was founded.
I think that the whole Cal Iso/DWR is dysfuntional and I have not seen a "clean" plan that pulls the pieces together to supply real utility service to those within the PG&E nor SCE service territories. I think that Davis is just praying that the creditors of PG&E and the management of SCE will be inspired and come up with a solution that works within the contrext of all the deals and legislation the State has created.
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