Perhaps buying from a CA generator, trading it off to, say, a Utahn utility, then seeing it retransmitted back into CA at market rates?
Robert, you're a pro. You know perfectly well that these types of strategies were used. Our little teeny outfit even used them, and didn't break (as far as we could tell, at least) even the tiniest regulation. Wouldn't be at all surprised if you heavyweights didn't do the same thing in larger degree. Frankly, it'd be more than a little shocking if you hadn't done so.
When morons write the rules, and ignore market functions completely, anyone who can add and who has even a small amount of imagination can earn a profit. 'Gaming' the system? What 'system'? What nonsense. Shooting tunafish in a barrel was more like it.
Do the assorted fools learn their lesson from this? Never, not a chance. They scream 'VICTIM' and attempt to misapply yet more governmental power to 'fix' (pardon my chortle) the situation.
Ever hear of ethics? It would be one thing if energy was something we could choose to do without, but, as you and the rest of the crooks in the energy field know, it isn't.
If this (screwing the consumers by manipulation) is an example of what energy companies call "free market" or "deregulation" it sucks, and may they rot in hell...
It isn't about Gray Davis or the Democrats. It's about screwing the unsuspecting public under the guise of free market and deregulation.
I never did. In fact I once got my attorney to threaten filing an anti-trust charge against two other utilities unless they stopped consistent attempts at blocking the utility I was at and a third utility that was using its transmission to keep me from making non-firm power purchases.
The last time power sales were made to California under my authority was in 1987. That is when I left working for a utility and became a consultant to the industry. I have advised folks since then on just about everthing inluding: power plants, transmission contracts, selling power plants, selling/buying utility service territory from another utility, electric retail & wholesale rates, natural gas rates, and a whole much more.
As an engineer, I did something unusual, I took a bunch of business law courses. I especially took a lot of anti-trust law courses. As a power manager, I kept asking attorneys about practices I saw and was shocked by. Electric utilities grew up a regulated monopolies. Most folks I knew in the industry really didn't understand that anti-trust or anti-monopoly laws sometimes applied to them.
The utility industry has had a long history of utilities coorperating with each other to help out during power problems. In a "market" wholesale power system, calling a potential competitor to do anything more than make a straight purchase or sale of some product or service starts to get close to a whole host of anti-trust things that a judge could say were a restraint of trade. I have often felt and told the people I mentored that anti-trust laws were an area they should be especially careful.
In the transition from regulated monopoly to market based wholesale generation, I don't think enough education ocurred on anti-trust laws.