SoCalGas urges CPUC to support compromise on electric transmission pricing issue before FERC.LOS ANGELES--(BUSINESS WIRE)--July 25, 1996--Southern California Gas Co. Thursday urged the California Public Utilities Commission The California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC; also often commonly referred to as simply the PUC) [1] is a state Public Utilities Commission which regulates privately-owned utilities in the state of California, including electric power, (CPUC CPUC California Public Utilities Commission CPUC Current Procurement Unit Cost ) to call upon federal regulators to support a new proposal related to electric industry restructuring. The SoCalGas proposal calls for splitting the transmission costs of bringing electricity generated out-of-state into California between consumers and the generators of that power. The compromise proposal would help to bridge the gap between competing plans offered up by the state's municipal utilities and a separate coalition of energy providers. But the compromise remains significantly different from the "single access fee" scheme -- which places regional transmission charges exclusively on consumers -- proposed by the Western Power Exchange (WEPEX WEPEX Weapons Exercise ). WEPEX, made up of California's three investor-owned electric utilities (IOU IOU An abbreviation of the phrase "I owe you." Notes: An IOU in the business community is actually a legally binding agreement between a borrower and a lender. The terms of the loan are set out in a contract, and, once it's signed, the two parties must abide by the terms ), submitted its plan to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) is the United States federal agency with jurisdiction over electricity sales, wholesale electric rates, hydroelectric licensing, natural gas pricing, and oil pipeline rates. , which is scheduled to hold a technical conference on transmission pricing on Aug. 1. The CPUC will address the conference on behalf of the state. The Coalition for Comparable Transmission, of which SoCalGas is a member, supports a two-part transmission rate -- a departure from WEPEX's "one-size-fits-all" concept -- that would differentiate between the local and regional transmission functions. Other transmission owners, represented by the California Municipal Utilities Association (CMUA CMUA California Municipal Utilities Association CMUA Central Maryland Ultimate Association CMUA Certificate Management User Agent ) and WEPEX, would recover all transmission rates from consumers. SoCalGas' new proposal is to aggregate all IOU and municipal transmission facilities into a single regional rate and maintain utility-specific local transmission rates -- as CMUA has proposed -- but then charge consumers for the reliability function of the regional transmission network and charge generators for the transmission facilities they use to deliver load to the California market. This approach is used in England and Wales England and Wales are both constituent countries of the United Kingdom, that together share a single legal system: English law. Legislatively, England and Wales are treated as a single unit (see State (law)) for the conflict of laws. . This, according to according to prep. 1. As stated or indicated by; on the authority of: according to historians. 2. In keeping with: according to instructions. 3. SoCalGas officials, would also help to mitigate the problems with WEPEX's proposal -- 1) that it would promote economic inefficiency by failing to recognize the different functions between regional and local transmission facilities; 2) that it would reduce gas-fired electric generation in Southern California in favor of remote coal-fired and nuclear generation, and economy energy purchases; and 3) that it would have an adverse effect on Southern California's economy and result in potential SoCalGas "stranded" facilities used to serve utility electric generating plants. "By charging generators their portion of the transmission rate, we promote economic efficiency and send more appropriate price signals," said Fred John, senior vice president for SoCalGas. "We also can help prevent the reduction of gas-fired generation in Southern California, and mitigate the costing among utilities and customer classes." SoCalGas delivered its proposal Thursday to the CPUC in advance of the July 26 hearing on this issue. SoCalGas supplies nearly 400 billion cubic feet of gas per year to utility electric generators and cogenerators. This is more natural gas than is delivered to many American cities and amounts to almost 40 percent of SoCalGas' annual throughput. The idea of splitting the access fee between the end-user and the generator is also independently advocated by Charles J. Cicchetti, Ph.D., adjunct professor of economics at the University of Southern California The U.S. News & World Report ranked USC 27th among all universities in the United States in its 2008 ranking of "America's Best Colleges", also designating it as one of the "most selective universities" for admitting 8,634 of the almost 34,000 who applied for freshman admission and board member of the Graduate School of Public Policy at the University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley is a public research university located in Berkeley, California, United States. Commonly referred to as UC Berkeley, Berkeley and Cal . Author of the book Restructuring Electricity Markets: A Worldwide Perspective, Cicchetti's views on transmission pricing are expressed in his recent article, titled "Been There, Done That." He was expected to present these views at the CPUC hearing on Friday. CONTACT: Pacific Enterprises Mike Mizrahi, 213/244-2540 |
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