Posted on 07/03/2002 7:15:59 PM PDT by Robert357
Edited on 07/19/2004 2:10:06 PM PDT by Jim Robinson. [history]
Folsom, California, July 3 (Bloomberg) -- Dynegy Inc., Williams Cos. and 10 other electricity suppliers were fined $122.1 million for failing to deliver enough supply during California's energy crisis in 2000 and 2001, the agency that manages the state's power grid said.
(Excerpt) Read more at quote.bloomberg.com ...
Are we surprised they didn't keep ranting about Enron? Nope, it has been proven that that dog don't hunt.
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Something doesn't add up. At all.
D
The following is from here: Blackout Procedures In California
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Role of the Independent System Operator
Cal ISO manages the reliability of roughly three quarters of the electricity that travels through the transmission lines in the state. These lines are owned and used by the big three investor-owned utilities -- Pacific Gas & Electric Co. (PG&E), Southern California Edison (SCE) and San Diego Gas & Electric Co. (SDG&E) -- and by the Pasadena Department of Water and Power and the city of Vernon. These five are called participating transmission operators, or PTOs.
When demand for electricity exceeds the supply, Cal ISO determines how much of the electrical load must be curtailed or shed. Cal ISO follows procedures for "shedding load" – in other words, ordering forced blackouts – that have been established by two voluntary organizations to which it belongs: the Western Systems Coordinating Council (WSCC) and the North American Electric Reliability Council (NERC).
Governing policies of the NERC and WSCC, which can be enforced by fines, require that power continue to be purchased as long as any is available, which effectively prohibits the ISO from setting cutoff deadlines on its negotiations to buy power. Theoretically, such a cutoff would provide more time to assess whether power purchases will be insufficient to meet anticipated demand. But because of up-to-the-minute buying requirements, reports Robin Larson, director of state and regional affairs for Cal ISO, as little as 20 or 30 minutes’ notice may precede an order to shed load.
Also remember that Cal-ISO was notorious for underscheduling load by more than 5% each day, and racked up over a $billion in fines, which were forgiven by FERC one year later on December 19, 2001.
So Cal-ISO paniced when their policy of underscheduling resulted in rolling blackouts in early 2000, and screamed for more power which turned out not to be available, since it hadn't been scheduled.
Some background information from the WSJ on Jan 19, 2001 California Faces More Blackouts, Lawsuits With No End in Sight:
For a second day, rolling blackouts shut down businesses, dimmed households and even threatened California's citrus crop. People were trapped in elevators and traffic was snarled. Supermarkets were crowded with customers buying flashlights and firewood. California Steel Industries Inc. in Fontana shut down its steel-rolling lines Thursday, losing about $2.4 million worth of production. And the crisis set off new legal fireworks as the city of San Francisco, hit by blackouts, sued power traders and generators, accusing them of conspiring to restrict supplies.
The California Independent System Operator, which runs the state's electrical grid and ensures reliability, declared its highest level of power emergency for the fifth time this year. Engineers at the ISO's control room in Folsom, Calif., were pressed into service phoning suppliers to coax a few more megawatts into the system.
Rolling blackouts began at midmorning after the Portland, Ore.-based Bonneville Power Administration had to reduce output because of low water levels in its hydroelectric system. On Wednesday "I borrowed water, and today we are paying the price," said Kellan Fluckiger, director of operations at the ISO. "We so badly wanted not to put the lights out." Nonetheless, rolling blackouts affected about a half a million utility customers Wednesday and two million Thursday.
The crisis has blown up into a dangerous game of brinkmanship by the state's two biggest utilities, power-generating companies, and politicians -- with the California economy in the balance. Many of these players helped design a complex electricity deregulation plan that became dysfunctional when it ran into a tight energy market.
Gov. Gray Davis signed an emergency order Wednesday empowering the state's Department of Water Resources to temporarily become a power buyer. But with only limited buying authority and a mere $400 million to spend -- less than two weeks' worth of electricity at current prices -- the DWR isn't expected to offer much relief. That's especially true because the DWR wasn't authorized to help fund the ISO's critical last-minute power purchases.
Also, I'm guessing that the list of companies had "must sell" contracts.
Personally, I hope that the leadership of the Cal-ISO gets sent to jail along with DWR and the Gov of California. I am sensing that with WorldCom, GlobalCrossing, Enron, Tyco, Martha Stewart's inside trading that we may be on the verge of a national desire to put white collar criminals and their accountants in jail. I sure hope so, as I have 67 shares of worthless WorldCom. Looking at the financial statements was obviously the equivalent of reading a work of fiction.
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