Posted on 10/12/2002 4:30:55 PM PDT by Ernest_at_the_Beach
Edited on 04/14/2004 10:05:35 PM PDT by Jim Robinson. [history]
Power The energy company says a claim that they could have been avoided is false.
SAN FRANCISCO
(Excerpt) Read more at 2.ocregister.com ...
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It was a lame attempt to blame the power shortages on the producers rather than the people who really caused them--the Democrats.
And once again we note that neither the California press nor the national press gives any ink to the true facts after widely publishing the CPUC fantasy piece.
Here's the link the Chronicle story.
The California Public Utilities Commission last month accused Reliant and four other power suppliers -- Houston-based Dynegy, Houston's Duke Energy, along with Mirant and AES/Williams -- of keeping generating capacity off the market during the height of the electricity shortage.
A commission report concluded that if those five generators had operated at full capacity between November 2000 and May 2001, California could have avoided four days of blackouts and many hours of interrupted service to industrial customers.
In the report, regulators contend 42 percent of Reliant's generating capacity was either out of service or not made available to the state's electric grid during critical periods of the power crisis.
Reliant officials Friday argued the report was "riddled with incomplete and erroneous information."
"The report has no basis in reality," said John Stout, Reliant's senior vice president of asset commercialization. "It is a superficial analysis of a complex matter, filled with errors and omissions and biased in both methodology and use of available data."
Reliant operates five power plants in Southern California with a combined generating capacity of 3,800 megawatts.
The report pointed to Nov. 13, 2000, when California found itself 1,857 megawatts short of power. On that day, the report said, Reliant had 600 megawatts of generating capacity available.
Reliant's power, together with 1,000 megawatts that Dynegy had not made available, "were enough to meet most of the needs of customers subject to the service interruptions."
Then, on May 31, 2001, the report noted, California fell 783 megawatts short of power, and again Reliant had 600 megawatts of power available.
"Reliant alone had available and unused power to meet the needs of three-quarters of the non-firm customers who experienced service interruptions that day," the report said.
On 16 other days when California experienced blackouts or service disruptions, Reliant had 200 to 400 megawatts of available power, the report said.
Reliant officials say they have been scratching their heads over the numbers in the report, which don't seem to jibe with the company's data or the appendix in the PUC's own report.
"We couldn't replicate the numbers," Reliant Vice President John Meyer said.
In one appendix, regulators said, Reliant failed to bid 810 megawatts of power it had available on Nov. 13, 2000. But the company said it had bid 729 megawatts for that date and did not bid the remaining 81 megawatts only because of environmental restrictions at one of its plants.
In a letter to California state Sen. Joseph Dunn, who heads a legislative panel looking into the issue, Stout argued that regulators ignored their inspectors' reports when producing the document.
They point to a visit by a commission official on May 30, 2001 -- one day before a key crisis date -- who inspected repairs being done on two generating units.
"She noted that crews were working at `max effort' and that the units would not be available until June," Stout noted.
Reliant officials even challenged the validity of the report itself, noting that "it was not reviewed or voted on by the commissioners" and thus "does not present `the commission's findings.' "
The tenor of Reliant's reaction was similar to responses filed by the other four generators over the last two weeks. Reliant and the others asked why regulators focused only on these five, out-of-state generators.
Atlanta-based Mirant, in a statement issued two weeks ago, said the report is "inaccurate, misleading and reflects a lack of understanding of basic power plant operations."
Williams Cos. CEO William Hobbs, in a letter to Dunn, said the report's conclusions "are simply wrong."
In its report, the commission says it gave the generators "the benefit of the doubt in several ways, chiefly by accepting generator claims of plant outages and mechanical problems at face value," the report said.
Duke, in a letter to commission President Loretta Lynch noted, "It is impossible to ignore the undertone of doubt throughout the CPUC report regarding the legitimacy of plant outages."
A spokeswoman for the California Public Utilities Commission declined to comment Friday on Reliant's response, noting that agency officials would need time to review the response. She also declined to comment on any of the other companies' responses.
Robert McCullough, managing partner of McCullough Research, a Portland, Ore.-based electric power consulting group, noted that while the company rebuttals may be a tribute to the generators' lawyers, "they're not reassuring on their engineering."
McCullough argues that generators weren't caught by surprise by supply shortages. They knew when shortages were likely to occur and could have geared up to handle them.
McCullough also raised questions about the generators' assertions they could not operate plants at certain times for fear they would exceed air quality standards. In the midst of the power crisis, McCullough argued, regulators were not being persnickety about the rules.
Reliant's Meyer argued, however, that companies could have faced severe sanctions if they had exceeded those limits without prior approval.
Reliant officials say they have been scratching their heads over the numbers in the report, which don't seem to jibe with the company's data or the appendix in the PUC's own report.
"We couldn't replicate the numbers," Reliant Vice President John Meyer said.
In one appendix, regulators said, Reliant failed to bid 810 megawatts of power it had available on Nov. 13, 2000. But the company said it had bid 729 megawatts for that date and did not bid the remaining 81 megawatts only because of environmental restrictions at one of its plants.
In a letter to California state Sen. Joseph Dunn, who heads a legislative panel looking into the issue, Stout argued that regulators ignored their inspectors' reports when producing the document.
Gosh, the PUC report isn't factual, I am sure that Gov Davis will make the people he appointed to the PUC improve their analytic abilities, right after he finishes with his election campaign.
Yeah, except for the largest fine to date, the $17 million against AES for continuing to pump out power during the crisis after they had exceeded their emission limit for the year.
This McCullough Research guy is from Portland, Oregon. Nuf' said. Looks like he's into dam busting:
Actually, I know Robert McCullough. Like they use to say about the New York Yankees, Robert McCullough is one of the best economists money can buy. When he is curious about a problem he can be brilliant in his analysis. When he is just grinding out an answer, well that is another story. He and I have been opposing expert witness in some of the same proceedings and we have worked for different folks who were basically on the same side of an issue. He is a very good economist, but I feel that he ocasionally gets in over his head on power operational issues. He probably feels similar about me.
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