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News
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LCG, October 10, 2023 – LCG Consulting (LCG) has released its annual outlook of the ERCOT wholesale electricity market for 2024, based on the most likely weather, market, transmission, and generator conditions.
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LCG, October 10, 2023 – LCG Consulting (LCG) has released its annual outlook of the ERCOT wholesale electricity market for 2024, based on the most likely weather, market, transmission, and generator conditions.
Read more
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Industry News
California Capsule: FERC takes on State's Refund Claims
LCG, June 25, 2001A Federal Energy Regulatory Commission administrative law judge who is scheduled to begin hearings on alleged overcharges for electricity in the wholesale power markets of California and other western states said on Friday that there will probably be refunds, but nothing like the $9 billion sought by California Gov. Gray Davis.Judge Curtis Wagner, the 72-year-old head FERC administrative law judge who will preside over two weeks of hearings beginning today, said "I'm hoping to come up with a settlement of the issue of a refund of overcharges -- if there are overcharges. My sense is that there probably are."FERC said Friday that the talks are not limited to California but could also include possible overcharges related to power sales in the Pacific Northwest.Asked about Davis' $9 billion figure, Wagner said "I think that's high," but he left a clear implication that the final figure could be many times the original $124 million in overcharges estimated by the FERC staff.FERC, which has jurisdiction over wholesale power prices, is charged with assuring that those prices are "just and reasonable," a term that is as difficult to quantify as it is to define. Enron Corp., Mirant Corp., Duke Energy Corp., The Williams Cos., Reliant Energy Inc. and Dynegy Inc. are among the power producers Davis has charged with price gouging. "California has been a cash cow to a lot of energy companies," the governor said last week during Senate testimony. "They have done extraordinarily well." All buyers and sellers in the California energy market will participate in the two-week conference, as well as officials from the California Public Utilities Commission and the governor's office, Wagner said. He added that reaching a decision in only fifteen days "was going to be tight."The judge added, however, "It's something we need quick action on, (and) sometimes it's best to have a short time period to do something."The power producers deny having done anything wrong and dispute the magnitude of the numbers thrown out by Davis and others.When told that a study by the California Independent System Operator showed Duke Energy Corp. overcharged by $805 million, spokesman Tom Williams said the amount was more than his company's entire energy earnings for North America. "It doesn't add up. It doesn't come close to adding up," Williams said. "What [Cal-ISO] has done is highly irresponsible math."Richard Wheatley, a spokesman for Reliant Energy Inc., which was accused of ripping the state off to the tune of $750 million, said "There's a lot of misinformation out there," and a spokesman for Mirant Corp., alleged by Cal-ISO to have picked California's pocket for $754 million, said "We haven 't overcharged. We haven't manipulated. We haven't withheld."Joe Ronan, vice president for government and regulatory relations with Calpine Corp., said the $236 million of overcharges attributed to his company "doesn't bear any relation to reality." He added "Anybody can throw out any number, it's like McCarthyism," and asked "Where is the evidence?"Duke Rebuts Whistleblower ChargesDuke Energy Corp. said on Friday that allegations that it had increased and decreased production of its South Bay power plant in California in order to manipulate the market were false, and that Cal-ISO had controlled the output in order to track fluctuations in demand.Last week, three former employees of San Diego Gas & Electric Co., who had worked at South Bay but were not retained by Duke, made several charges against the company, acting as "whistle-blowers" in a state Senate hearing. Bill Hall, vice president of Duke's western operations, said, "These allegations represent justone more page in a very long chapter of misinformation disseminated by people who don't know the fullstory."Jimmy Olkjer, a former control room operator at the South Bay plant, told the Senate committee "Rather than creating more power, they were creating less. I think there was manipulation of the market."Duke responded Friday that the plant's five units were operated under the direction of the Cal-ISO to meet system reliability. "While the three ex-workers allude to log books from the plant control room with notations from Duke Energy Trading & Marketing, the former SDG&E South Bay employees apparently did not know that that the ISO directs output through the DETM coordinator," Duke said. "Our records of ISO directions match up perfectly with the logbook notations."To charges by the three that the most expensive unit was run at South Bay to drive up ISO prices, Duke pointed out that "South Bay's 15 megawatt, jet-fueled unit was designed principally to provide start-up power to the station's steam units. This unit has been made available to provide as much energy as possible to California during the state's energy crisis." Moreover, the unit was being run to cover Duke's contractual commitments to direct customers and was not being bid into the ISO market, the company said.Ed Edwards, a former mechanic at South Bay, claimed he was ordered to throw out "perfectly good parts that were used to make repairs of systems and components." Duke said it "purchased the entire inventory for South Bay when we assumed operations for the plant in 1998. We retained the parts and tools we deemed useful and disposed of inventory that was damaged or obsolete."Duke refrained from specifying why the three former employees were not retained.Today will be Slow at the ISOCal-ISO said on its Website this morning that the peak demand in its California control area today would likely be 33,189 megawatts and it had its hands on 42,970 megawatts of reliable generation. The 30 percent reserve is a luxury to which the ISO is not accustomed.It's the weather, and not state officials who are responsible for this benign state of affairs. As we look out our window at 10:20 PDT, the San Francisco Bay Area is blanketed by a thin layer of marine stratus the cooling fog that rolls in after three days of sunshine.Up north in Redding, which sweltered in the hundreds last week, today's high is expected to be 73. Palm Springs, California's desert playground is likely to reach 100, but that's 10 degrees less than a week ago. Bakersfield, at the south end of the San Joaquin Valley will be balmy at 88, and Los Angeles should see no more that 81.When the governor's office credits conservation, you'll know better.
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UPLAN-NPM
The Locational Marginal Price Model (LMP) Network Power Model
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UPLAN-ACE
Day Ahead and Real Time Market Simulation
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UPLAN-G
The Gas Procurement and Competitive Analysis System
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PLATO
Database of Plants, Loads, Assets, Transmission...
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