Group,

When doing an import or an export from California there are a few important guidelines to remember.

IMPORT-This must be FIRM.  A firm import is required so that we provide the spinning reserves to California (we do this by buying firm energy for the import).  If the import is non-firm, California will charge us their price for spinning reserve margins.  This could easily be $400 per mw come this summer.


EXPORT-This must be NON-FIRM.  A non-firm export allows us to provide spinning reserves to our bilat trading partners (or to simply sell the energy without spinning reserves as "non-firm"), and NOT have to pay the California price for spinning reserve margins.  Conversely if we do a firm export, we would have to pay for California to supply spinning reserves.  And because California will sometime use actual purchased energy for spinning reserves, this could easily be $400 per mw this summer.
California has also proposed cutting firm exports this summer, so a "firm" export does not imply that the energy would actually be exported anymore than nonfirm.

IF you have other questions.  Please let me know.

Thanks,
Bill