Free Republic

LOS ANGELES California set a record for power use Friday as the state continued to bake in a heat wave that has sent temperatures soaring above 100 degrees from the north to the south and may have been responsible for as many as four deaths. The demand for electricity peaked at 4:28 p.m. when 49,036 megawatts of power was used across the state, the California Independent System Operator said. The previous record of 46,561 megawatts was set Monday. The temperature reached 120 degrees in the desert resort town of Palm Springs, shattering a 54-year-old record for the date of 117...

NEW YORK (MarketWatch) - Calpine Corp. said Wednesday it would sell all its remaining oil and gas properties to an indirect subsidiary for about $1.05 billion. Under the terms of the deal Rosetta Resources Inc., wholly owned by Calpine, will issue 45.3 million shares worth $725 million in a private placement. The proceeds, together with a $325 million in a new credit facility, will be used to buys all of Calpine's domestic oil and gas exploration and production assets. Shares of San Jose, Calif.-based Calpine (CPN: news, chart, profile) rose 5.83% in pre-opening trade Wednesday to $3.81. Calpine said the...

Southern California's utility customers, who already pay among the highest rates in the nation for electricity, are now paying companies millions of dollars a month for power they never deliver. The payments arise from a program created by the state electricity grid's manager to deal with congestion on a key power line leading into San Diego. As power shipments increase beyond the line's capacity, the grid manager – California's Independent System Operator – triggers a curious auction system. The ISO asks companies planning to transmit electricity to bid for the right not to do so. When a bid is accepted,...

<p>WASHINGTON -- Sen. Dianne Feinstein has raised the prospects of another electricity shortage as early as this summer in a letter asking Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to embrace immediate measures to control prices and speed construction of new generating plants.</p> <p>Among her proposals is that consumer prices charged by the state's three investor-owned utilities, including Pacific Gas and Electric and Southern California Edison, be based on their costs rather than the less flexible three-year rate schedule process now used by the California Public Utility Commission.</p>

WASHINGTON - Federal energy regulators announced settlements with Mirant Corp. and Duke Energy Corp. that could require the companies to pay more than $8 million to settle claims of improper actions during California's 2000-2001 energy crisis. California officials immediately denounced the settlements announced Friday as too low. Mirant Corp. agreed to pay nearly $3.7 million to settle claims by California regulators that it improperly sold reserve electricity meant to be used only for emergency purposes or to support grid reliability. The settlement must still be approved by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission or a judge. FERC approved a $2.5 million...

WASHINGTON — Listen to top federal energy regulator Pat Wood — a tempting target for California politicians — muse on the new administration of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger: "I have to confess a little tinge of excitement when I heard the governor's inauguration speech," Wood, chairman of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, said in a recent interview. "When was the last time I was excited about California?" Now listen to Stanford University professor Jim Sweeney, a top advisor to the governor on energy matters: "We do better working with FERC rather than being opposed to each other." Schwarzenegger's approach to the...

<p>Not a lot of "ho-ho-ho's" at Pacific Gas and Electric Co., what with the big blackout and then the earthquake, but one group sure is smiling -- namely, the lawyers who represented the utility in its bankruptcy proceedings.</p> <p>It turns out that as part of that $8 billion, ratepayer-funded deal to bring PG&E out of bankruptcy, the state Public Utilities Commission signed off on $227 million in attorney fees.</p>

<p>Affordable power is plentiful in California today, and so is the fallout from newly released Enron Corp. documents that detail the company's role in the state's energy crisis.......</p> <p>Federal regulators, accused of being slow to respond to price and supply problems in the West, have been acting with unusual speed since the 17-month-old documents were released last week. They are trying to determine if other sellers of power tried to manipulate prices through strategies similar to those described by Enron lawyers.......</p>