|
|
|
Or mail checks to: Or you can use: |
|
STOP BY AND BUMP THE FUNDRAISER THREAD- |
Posted on 04/05/2004 4:28:16 PM PDT by Ernest_at_the_Beach
WASHINGTON (AP) - The power industry's disregard of its rules intended to ensure the reliable flow of electricity contributed significantly to last summer's blackout in eight states and Canada, investigators said Monday in their final report. Another major outage could happen unless reliability regulations, with clear penalties for violators, are put in place, according to the report by a joint U.S.-Canadian task force. It also recommended more independence for the private industry-sponsored group that writes voluntary requirements for power grids. "The report makes clear that this blackout could have been prevented and that immediate actions must be taken in both the United States and Canada to ensure that our electric system is more reliable," Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham said. The blackout came on Aug. 14, darkening all or parts of eight states from Michigan to New York and affecting areas of Canada. An interim report in November from the task force outlined many problems, but Congress has failed to address them. The Bush administration and many lawmakers agree on the need to end the industry's regulation of itself. Attempts to have the government impose reliability standards have gotten tangled up in broader disagreements on Capitol Hill over energy legislation. The report Monday said none of the information received during the past four months "have changed the validity" of its interim findings in November. Those conclusions were that the blackout should have been prevented; that it originated with power line problems in Ohio; and that the outages rapidly cascaded because of communications problems, faulty equipment and inadequate training. The final report, as did the earlier one, leveled much of the blame on Ohio-based FirstEnergy Corp., which it said failed to adequate recognize or respond to problems on three of its Ohio lines. Investigators also found inadequate monitoring of events by the regional grid system operator. FirstEnergy has contended that the grid problems were more widespread. But the final report also said investigators found "additional violations of reliability requirements and institutional and performance deficiencies beyond those identified" in November. "First and foremost, compliance with reliability rules must be made mandatory with substantial penalties for noncompliance," said Abraham and Canadian Natural Resource Minister John Efford, who led the task force. The power industry has an array of voluntary requirements aimed at preventing blackouts. They are administered by the private North American Reliability Council, which lacks the ability to hand down penalties. Many reliability rules were ignored and the council could not do much about it, investigators have found. The task force recommended finding new ways to fund the council and its regional affiliates "to ensure their independence from the parties that they oversee."
|
|
|
Or mail checks to: Or you can use: |
|
STOP BY AND BUMP THE FUNDRAISER THREAD- |
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/business/167549_bpa03.html?searchpagefrom=1&searchdiff=3
Low water may add to BPA's woes
By BILL VIRGIN SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER
Too little precipitation east of the mountains is threatening to put an additional financial pinch on the Bonneville Power Administration even as the agency is already under pressure to avoid a rate increase in October.
BPA Administrator Steve Wright said yesterday the water forecast on the Columbia River hydroelectric generating system, which had been estimated at 100 percent of normal at Jan. 1, has deteriorated to about 80 percent of an average year.
That poses a twofold problem for BPA. Less water in the Columbia system means less water to help salmon in their migration. It also means less surplus power to sell outside the region, and thus less revenue to help plug a hole in BPA's budget.
"There's still hope" that water conditions could improve to close to average, Wright said, "but you'd almost have to have 40 days and 40 nights (of rain) to get back to average."
The BPA has been trying to avoid an Oct. 1 increase in the wholesale rates it charges to its customer utilities, but to accomplish that it needed to come up with $100 million in annual spending cuts or revenue increases. That was before the latest water forecasts suggesting revenue from power sales won't be as good as expected.
Wright said the BPA has been looking at three ways to reach that $100 million goal. One is to withhold some of the water that has in past summers been spilled over dams to help salmon migration, thus making more water available for power generation. The plan to reduce summer spill was announced earlier this week.
Another is settlement of litigation filed by public utilities over payments to investor-owned utilities (such as Puget Sound Energy) as part of a program to share the benefits of the low-cost hydropower system with residential customers. The BPA had come up with a settlement that required the endorsement of all parties to the lawsuit; public utilities such as Snohomish and Grays Harbor public utility districts objected to the terms, saying they were too generous to the investor-owned utilities.
Wright said the BPA has been talking to the investor-owned utilities about a smaller settlement.
The BPA also has a board of customers and constituents who have come up with $80 million in cost savings or revenue increases "we're comfortable with," Wright said.
The October rate increase that Bonneville hopes to avoid would be in a component that BPA is allowed to increase if it believes revenues may not be enough to ensure repayment of its federal Treasury debt. That surcharge, currently at 11 percent of base rates, its slated to go to 14 percent in October
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.
