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News
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LCG, August 14, 2024 – LCG Consulting (LCG) has released its annual outlook of the ERCOT wholesale electricity market for 2025, highlighting the region's rapid transition toward increased reliance on renewable energy resources and battery storage.
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LCG, August 14, 2024 – LCG Consulting (LCG) has released its annual outlook of the ERCOT wholesale electricity market for 2025, highlighting the region's rapid transition toward increased reliance on renewable energy resources and battery storage.
Read more
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Industry News
California Capsule: Newly Democratic Senate Tepid on Price Caps
LCG, June 4, 2001According to the U.S. Senate's incoming majority leader Tom Daschle federal price controls on electricity costs are unlikely, but the Senate will hold hearings into the energy crunch in the coming weeks.The news about price caps is sure to displease California Gov. Gray Davis who said last week that he "looked forward to working with the newly constituted U.S. Senate" to get price relief for California electricity users.Daschle, a South Dakota Democrat, said "We may have multitiered, multicommittee analysis of the circumstances through hearings that I think will be very instructive and helpful," but he added later "The possibility of passing price caps is not as great as other options that we could choose."Daschle noted that there were differences of opinion about price caps within his own party, but Davis believes that legislation offered by Democrat Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California and Sen. Gordon Smith, an Oregon Republican, could overcome senatorial reticence. Their measure would direct the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to establish wholesale rates based on cost of service when FERC finds that "unjust and unreasonable" prices are being charged.Feinstein said she would "go to the wall" for price caps, but Daschle, not Feinstein, will be majority leader of the Senate. Earlier on Friday he said "I don't agree with the notion of price caps as the panacea or necessarily as even the first option available to us."Sacramento's Hostility Costs State 530 MegawattsMirant Corp., which was granted approval by the California Energy Commission for a 530 megawatt addition to its Contra Costa Power Station in the San Francisco East Bay last week, has tabled plans to build the project at least for now, citing the "hostile business climate" in the state.Chuck Griffin, a spokesman for Mirant, said investigations by state agencies, lawsuits, threatened power plant seizures, a proposed windfall-profits tax, accusations of market manipulation and vitriolic rhetoric from the governor and others make investing in the state an unattractive proposition."All those threats combine to create a very hostile business climate," Griffin said.Following the commission's approval of the new plant last Wednesday, Davis issued a press release boasting that the facility was the 16th major power plant licensed under his administration.Griffin said the governor was largely responsible for Mirant's decision to at least temporarily shelve the project. "We're not sure what direction we're headed in," he said. "It makes it very difficult to make basic business decisions."Bankruptcy Judge Won't Lift PG&E's Rate CapU.S. Bankruptcy Judge Dennis Montali on Friday rejected a petition by Pacific Gas & Electric Co. to lift the retail electricity rate caps that have pushed the utility more than $4 billion into the hole. Those rate controls are set to expire next March.Montali described the state regulations that have prevented the company from charging what it pays for power as legitimate application of the state's "police powers" and its authority to set "public policy," function beyond the reach of the bankruptcy court.Loretta Lynch, president of the California Public utilities Commission, said she was "pleased, but not surprised, that Judge Montali has ruled that PG&E cannot evade proper state regulation by choosing to file for bankruptcy."Separately, Montali ruled that Puget Sound Energy Inc. remains bound by a power-swapping agreement with PG&E, which requires the Washington state utility to send electricity south for four months each year, beginning June 1. Reciprocating, PG&E sends power north in the winter.In January and February, PG&E failed to send some of the power north, and Puget Energy said that failure voided the contract. Montali rejected that claim, saying the power was needed in California to prevent blackouts.
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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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