PG&E Calls For Price Cap To Be Reduced Below $250 MWh
  
09/25/2000 
Dow Jones Energy Service 
(Copyright (c) 2000, Dow Jones & Company, Inc.) 
LOS ANGELES -(Dow Jones)- Pacific Gas & Electric Co. has asked federal 
regulators to lower the wholesale power price cap at the state's Independent 
System Operator real-time market and lift a state-mandated rate freeze so it 
can charge its customers market-based rates for electricity, according to 
documents obtained by Dow Jones Newswires. 
The PG&E Corp. unit filed documents with the Federal Energy Regulatory 
Commission Friday saying the wholesale price of power it pays and what it 
charges consumers has forced the company into a $2.2 million debt. 
In addition, the utility says independent energy companies are charging 
"unfair" prices for electricity and that they should refund some money to 
customers to ease the "shock" its 4.5 million customers will feel when the 
rate-freeze is lifted. 
The company wants FERC to cap wholesale electricity prices at the ISO's 
"immediately," at a price lower than $250 per megawatt-hour. 
The rate-freeze, which protected consumers as the state moved to electricity 
competition, is scheduled to end in March 2002, but the company has 
petitioned state regulators to lift the rate-freeze sooner so it can avoid 
further debt. 
Gov. Gray Davis and the state's Public Utilities Commission said last week 
they do not support such a measure and that it would likely not happen before 
2002. 
   -By Jason Leopold; Dow Jones Newswires; 323-658-3874;
jason.leopold@dowjones.com