|
27 April 2004 - Atlanta-based Southern Co. and its Georgia utilities have a fix for the system they say is not broken.
Georgia Power and Savannah Electric say they will agree to add an independent evaluator into the process by which they choose wholesale power suppliers. The companies are willing to add that evaluator, said Georgia Power spokesman John Sell, even though "we don't think we need one."
In prepared testimony to the state Public Service Commission this month, the company emphasized that "the fact that we may offer changes to the existing process does not suggest that we believe the... current process is flawed."
For the past year, FERC has been investigating a challenge to a 2001process by which Georgia Power and Savannah Electric bought wholesale power. In the bidding, the two utilities awarded most of their business to an affiliate, Southern Power.
Competitors say the bidding process was laced with preferential treatment for Southern Co.'s affiliate. They want FERC to throw out the 2001 results.
The same challengers are also weighing in on the state debate over whether and how Southern Co.'s Georgia utilities should handle such bids in the future. As reflected in PSC staff questioning of Georgia Power and Savannah Electric last week, competitors do not think the two utilities' "unneccessary" reforms go far enough.
Among other things, they question whether a proposed independent evaluator of Southern Co.'s bidding would in fact be independent, given that the examiner's paycheck would come from Southern Co.
Southern Co.'s wholesale power bidding troubles began last spring, with a challenge to two 15-year contracts awarded to Southern Power in 2001. Challengers say Southern Co. abused a complex system of affiliates to steer the business to its affiliate and freeze wholesale competition out of the South.
The case is still pending at FERC. But it already has raised concerns at the state PSC, which is responsible for monitoring and approving wholesale power contract awards for Georgia Power and Savannah Electric.
Evidence shows that Southern Co. handled the 2001 bid through a tangled and overlapping system of subsidiaries, and that contract-related information was shared with Southern Power to the exclusion of other competitors.
The shared information included advanced notice of the timing and specifications of bid proposals, as well as information that competitors allege was a target price.
Southern Co. says none of the information affected bidding results.
As the FERC case moved forward, PSC staff began talking to the state's electric utilities about requiring new safeguards against conflicts of interest
| 
Articles 
| View all PennWell sites | View all PennWell events
Add RSS Feed
