10 DAYS' LIGHT: $126,000 COLLEGE TO PAY BIG PENALTY FOR NOT SHUTTING DOWN.Byline: Lisa Mascaro Staff Writer VALENCIA - After keeping the lights on so students could take final exams Noun 1. final exam - an examination administered at the end of an academic term final examination, final exam, examination, test - a set of questions or exercises evaluating skill or knowledge; "when the test was stolen the professor had to make a new set of this summer and study this winter, College of the Canyons College of the Canyons is one of the fastest-growing community colleges in the state. According to the National Junior College Research Association, College of the Canyons consistently ranks in the top 50 community colleges in the nation. is paying the price. The campus said it faces $126,000 in penalties for 2000 - its power bill the year before was $560,000 - because it chose to stay open rather than shut down when called on to do so. ``We really owed it to our students, whether they were in class or enrolling,'' said spokesman John McElwain. ``We really bit the bullet.'' The college is part of the interruptible rate program, through which Southern California Edison Southern California Edison (or SCE Corp), the largest subsidiary of Edison International (NYSE: EIX), is the primary electricity supply company for much of Southern California. It provides 11 million people with electricity. offers lower rates in exchange for being called on to cut power in times when demand strains supply. Edison has said that about 1,000 customers in the Southern California Southern California, also colloquially known as SoCal, is the southern portion of the U.S. state of California. Centered on the cities of Los Angeles and San Diego, Southern California is home to nearly 24 million people and is the nation's second most populated region, area are part of the voluntary program, but the number of times businesses were called on to cut power last year was not anticipated. ``We have a lot of empathy empathy Ability to imagine oneself in another's place and understand the other's feelings, desires, ideas, and actions. The empathic actor or singer is one who genuinely feels the part he or she is performing. for the customers. . . . We understand the situation they're in,'' said Edison spokesman Kevin Payne This article is about the professional boxer. For the soccer executive, see Kevin Payne (soccer). Kevin Payne (born January 12 1972, in Evansville, IN, died March 19 2006 in Evansville IN) was a professional boxer. , who said he could not comment specifically on the college's situation. ``This is a tough situation for a lot of different people, and the interruptible customers have certainly been impacted greatly.'' Companies that opt not to shut down when they are called on pay a higher rate to stay plugged in - for College of the Canyons, it meant paying $9 per kilowatt-hour instead of 8.5 cents on average. The college said it had been called on 15 times in 2000 to cut power - deciding to do so five times, but deciding to pay the higher price 10 other times. Some of the days it shut down came in summer, when work was nearly done for the day and afternoon light allowed for outdoor classes, McElwain said. But the days it stayed open included those in summer when students were in the middle of finals week, and in December when the college was enrolling students and preparing for the end of the term. Those 10 days ended up costing the college $126,000, McElwain said. The college expects to pay the bill from its operating reserves In power systems, the operating reserve is the generating capacity available to the system operator within a short interval of time to meet demand in case a generator is lost or there is another disruption to the supply. . McElwain said that while the college felt it had an obligation to students, it bristles that it must use its public funding Public funding is money given from tax revenue or other governmental sources to an individual, organization, or entity. See also
The college is part of a city effort to urge the Public Utilities Commission to allow businesses to opt out of the program under an upcoming March deadline. ``We do that and end up paying a huge penalty for something for which we didn't bargain,'' he said. ``I don't think anybody really anticipated the extent to which power companies would not be able to provide power.'' |
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