Posted on 03/25/2004 11:16:16 AM PST by calcowgirl
PG&E Corp., owner of California's largest utility, hopes to get approval to build plants that would sell electricity at regulated rates, reversing a state policy of separating ownership of power stations and utilities.
"We want to invest in new cost-of-service generation," Chief Executive Robert D. Glynn Jr. said at an investor conference in New York sponsored by Morgan Stanley and broadcast on the Internet. "It's a business we know how to do."
PG&E and other California utility owners were forced under the state's deregulation plan to sell power plants to help foster competitive wholesale electricity markets. During the California energy crisis of 2000 and 2001, utilities had to buy power from unregulated producers at surging prices and weren't able to pass on the higher costs to customers. The crisis pushed Pacific Gas & Electric Co., the flagship unit of San Francisco-based PG&E, into bankruptcy. The utility is expected to emerge during the week of April 12, Glynn said.
PG&E would like to build regulated power stations funded by its free cash flow, Glynn said. "We don't know if policy makers will provide us the opportunity," he said. "We'll know this year."
Edison International, owner of California's second-biggest utility, this year won approval from state and federal regulators to buy and complete a power plant near Los Angeles. California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and Michael Peevey, president of the California Public Utilities Commission, have said they favor competitive markets over regulated power sales.
When approving the Edison purchase, Peevey called it a "one-time opportunity."
Xcel Energy Inc., owner of utilities in Minneapolis and Denver, also will build new regulated power plants to reduce its dependence on purchased power, President Richard C. Kelly said at the Morgan Stanley conference.
"New supply has been built over the past 10 years by others, not by us," Kelly said. "Most of that was gas-fired generation. A large chunk of the new generation we'll build will be coal-fired."
Generators fueled by coal would reduce Xcel's vulnerability to swings in natural-gas prices, Kelly said. The company buys coal mined in Wyoming under contracts that lock in costs over a number of years, he said.
You mean the people that used the word "deregulation" to mean State ownership of the utility business?
The folks who said utility companies can't sign long term contracts for electricity?
The folks who said the State would sign long term contracts with zero experience in negotiating with electricity suppliers?
The ones who contracted for years of supply at insanely inflated prices?
I don't trust 'em either.
PG&E I do trust.
Actually, that was a typo... I meant to write 'ratepayer'. From what I read of the bankruptcy settlement, I think the ratepayers got stuck with more than their 'fair share' so to speak.
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