[OT]: Involuntary outages may start at 7am PST

Wed Jan 24 19:55:08 UTC 2001

> From: "Kavi, Prabhu" <prabhu_kavi at tenornetworks.com>
> Date: Wed, 24 Jan 2001 13:25:43 -0500
> Sender: owner-nanog at merit.edu
> 
> 
> Quoting from the 1/22/01 online issue of US News & World Report:
> 
> "Ironically, California's nightmare stems in part from the state's efforts
> to lower rates. In 1996, both houses of the state legislature voted
> unanimously to deregulate the market for wholesale electricity, enabling
> power producers to sell electricity to utilities on the spot market. But the
> new law failed to create a free retail market-in most cases, rates for
> consumers and businesses were fixed until at least April 2002.  ...
> No major power plant has been built in California for more than a
> decade, partly because of environmental restrictions."
> 
> And in the 1/29/01 online issue:
> 
> "... In California, however, utilities were forbidden to enter into 
> long-term supply contracts and were forced immediately to buy energy 
> in the volatile wholesale spot market."
> 
> So tell me, how could PG&E have accurately forecasted the booming
> demand for power back in 1996 and protected themselves, given no
> new plants were being built?

They could/did not. They made a corporate bet and they lost. That does
not make it someone else's fault. PG&E and SO. Cal. Edison were major
forces in lobbying for the regulatory changes that have driven them to
the edge of insolvency.

R. Kevin Oberman, Network Engineer
Energy Sciences Network (ESnet)
Ernest O. Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab)
E-mail: oberman at es.net			Phone: +1 510 486-8634