Wednesday, April 11, 2001 | Los Angeles Times
Energy Cost Study Critical of Public Agencies Too
Power: DWP is among three government-run producers
cited as driving prices up. Spokesmen
deny any market manipulation
By ROBERT J. LOPEZ, RICH CONNELL, Times Staff Writers
Government-owned utilities, including the Los Angeles Department of
Water and Power,
were influential in driving wholesale electricity prices to levels
that helped ignite California's
exploding energy crisis during the summer and fall, according to public
and confidential records.
For months, Gov. Gray Davis, legislators and consumer advocates
have chiefly blamed a few
private power companies for throwing the state into darkness
and economic chaos.
But they are just part of the equation.
A confidential document obtained by The Times
names power providers that have allegedly
manipulated the electricity market. While the document does identify
out-of-state merchants
criticized for gouging, it also discloses for the first time the extent
to which public entities allegedly
have maximized profits in the volatile spot market.
The document--which decodes the identities
of unnamed suppliers in a recent state
study--singles out three government-run agencies as consistently
trying to inflate prices. They
are: the DWP, the federally owned Bonneville Power Administration
in the Pacific Northwest and
the trading arm of Canada's BC Hydro in British Columbia.
Like a number of privately owned generators,
these three producers offered power at a range
of high prices and, sometimes, in large amounts when the state
was most desperate. They also
helped saddle California's three largest utilities with billions
of dollars in debt--leading one,
Pacific Gas & Electric, to seek bankruptcy protection last
week.
The study by the California Independent
System Operator, or Cal-ISO, analyzed thousands of
hours of bidding practices for 20 large suppliers in the spot,
or "real-time," market from May to
November. The study accounted for factors such as rising production
costs, increased demand,
periods of scarcity and profits that would be earned
in a healthy, competitive market.
Money earned above that was called excess profits. No entity--public or private--earned as much in alleged excess profits as British Columbia's Powerex, the state records show.
"They were the most aggressive bidders," said Anjali Sheffrin, author of the coded study.
"They had the most amount to bid and the most freedom to
bid it in," said Sheffrin, who did not
discuss any companies by name. The Canadian agency
reaped $176 million in alleged excessive profits--several times the
amount collected by all but one of the private generators. Second on the
list was Atlanta-based Southern Co. Energy Marketing, now called Mirant,
which collected nearly $97 million in alleged inflated earnings.
BC Hydro and Mirant--along with the DWP and other producers--say they played by the rules established under California's flawed deregulation plan and did not exploit the state's troubles. But BC Hydro officials acknowledge that they did anticipate periods of severe power shortages and planned for them by letting their reservoirs rise overnight and then opening them to create hydroelectricity, which could be produced inexpensively but sold for a premium.
"It was the marketplace that determined what the price of electricity
would be at any given
time," said BC Hydro spokesman Wayne Cousins. "We helped keep
the lights on in California."
And the rates low for their own customers. During the past year,
BC Hydro has stashed
hundreds of millions dollars in a "rainy day" account
to ensure that it has among the lowest rates in
North America.
Los Angeles' Department of Water and Power, although eighth on the list of alleged profiteers, was among those singled out for seeking high prices during periods of high demand that helped inflate costs across the entire spot market, where emergency purchases are made.
This, according to state documents, was accomplished
by offering power at incrementally
higher prices that would rise substantially with even modest
increases in demand. The strategy
also helped prop up prices, keeping them from falling.
The DWP's average hourly bid, or asking price, for electricity ultimately
bought topped such private sellers as Reliant Energy of Houston and
Tulsa-based Williams Cos., two major players in the national energy market.
In addition, the DWP submitted other bids at far higher
prices that could pay off handsomely
with even small bumps in demand, the report said, referring by
code to DWP and four other
suppliers. "The data shows they clearly exercised market
power to inflate prices further at higher
load conditions."
DWP General Manager S. David Freeman called the report's findings "outrageous," insisting that the utility never tried to inflate prices. "These charges go under the heading there is no good deed that goes unpunished in this state," Freeman said, noting that DWP power helped avert more blackouts across the state.
He did acknowledge, however, that the agency has charged high
prices for surplus power at
the 11th hour but said that was only because it
cost more to produce.
"We have consistently charged [Cal-ISO] our cost, plus 15%,"
he said. "It's not as though
we're up there peddling a bunch of power to jam
it down their throats."
Freeman said that when his staff reviewed the coded report,
they never took it personally. "If
you're innocent," he said, "you don't look
at the criminal file."
Yet another public agency criticized for its behavior in California's
deregulated market was the
U.S. government's Bonneville Power Administration, a nonprofit
agency that sells wholesale
electricity produced at 29 federal dams in the Columbia-Snake
River basin.
Bonneville actually bid slightly lower than the DWP, records
show, but reaped millions more in
alleged excessive profits, apparently because it supplied greater
amounts of power during the
period studied. Bonneville was in the top five accused of taking
excessive profits.
Bonneville officials say some of its profits are used to pay
back federal construction loans and
fund an internationally recognized salmon recovery
program.
Stephen Oliver, a Bonneville vice president, said his agency
did not act improperly and has
asked Cal-ISO for detailed information on how it reached its
conclusions. He said the grid
operator often came to Bonneville pleading for last-minute electricity
and offering to pay high
prices. "From our point of view, we bid what we
had when we had it and we operated precisely within the terms
of their rules," Oliver said.
Those rules--and the bidding practices criticized by Cal-ISO--so distorted the market that Aquila Power Corp. of Missouri, which tried to act responsibly, has bailed out. It offered the lowest average hourly price of any supplier studied--slightly more than $8 per megawatt-hour, compared to Mirant's $138, the highest.
But the spot market, as initially designed, made sure that all suppliers
offering power received
the highest price paid in any hour. The result: Aquila collected
$171 an hour for power it was willing to sell at a single-digit price.
"They weren't the culprits," said Cal-ISO's Sheffrin. "Someone else drove
that up."
Aquila spokesman Al Butkus said the company pulled out of the California
market because it
was too unpredictable. Although the company made money, he said,
it also could have lost
because of possible downward swings. "We looked
at it and we didn't feel very comfortable with what we saw," he said.
The market has since been adjusted to prevent high bids from setting the
price for everyone. But Sheffrin said it hasn't made much difference
because the overall prices are still excessive. "We're saying the
patient is sick," Sheffrin said of California's electricity market. "It
needs help [and] may die."