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		 Subject: Yahoo! Finance Story - Yahoo - SDG&amp;E files Calif. power market 
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Yahoo - SDG&E files Calif. power market reform proposals
http://biz.yahoo.com/rf/001020/n20262785.html 

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Friday October 20, 11:18 am Eastern Time
SDG&E files Calif. power market reform proposals
SAN DIEGO, Oct 20 (Reuters) - San Diego Gas and Electric, the utility whose 
customers faced a near tripling in their electricity bills this summer, filed 
a plan with federal regulators on Friday designed to address some of the 
problems with California's deregulated power market.
The utility, a unit of Sempra Energy (NYSE:SRE - news), filed a 17-point plan 
that included a temporary price cap for wholesale power prices of $100 per 
megawatt hour and a reorganization of the California Independent System 
Operator (ISO), which operates most of the state's electricity grid.
``Despite the cooler weather and lower statewide demand we recently have been 
experiencing, the high wholesale electric prices out customers have endured 
this summer are not subsiding,'' said SDG&E chairman Edwin Guiles.
``We need federal regulators to take swift and immediate action in addressing 
the fundamental structural defects in California's deregulated marketplace 
that have contributed to electricity prices that we believe are neither just 
nor reasonable,'' he added.
Earlier this week the state's two other investor- owned utilities, PG&E Corp 
(NYSE:PCG - news) unit Pacific Gas and Electric and Edison International 
(NYSE:EIX - news) subsidiary Southern California Edison also filed in support 
of a $100 price cap along with consumer group, the Utility Reform Network 
(TURN).
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) is currently investigating 
California's power market after prices soared to record levels this year. 
There have been allegations that rates were not ``just and reasonable'' as 
required under federal regulations.
The California ISO cut its cap on wholesale prices twice this year from an 
initial $750 per MWh to a final $250 but drew criticism from some for not 
cutting the cap faster.
The agency's board of governors includes representatives of a wide range of 
organisations including independent power producers, who have made huge 
profits this summer with prices soaring to record levels, as well as consumer 
groups, investor owned utilities and municipal utilities.
SDG&E called for the removal of ``economically based stakeholders'' from the 
board of governors and for also a reduction in its size.
``The current stakeholder board is to large to be effective and apparently 
incapable of adopting the structural change necessary to support workable 
competition,'' the utility said.
Customers of SDG&E were the first in the country to pay market-based prices 
without a safety net under the terms of California's trailblazing power 
market regulation.
State legislators intervened this year and imposed a price cap on SDG&E 
retail rates after reports that pensioners were turning off their 
refrigerators in a bid to avoid running up massive bills after rates tripled.
The state's power problems are rooted partly in increased loads linked to the 
nation's booming economy, with Western states among those showing the fastest 
growth.
There also have been few power plants built during the past 10 years, and 
although many are now planned, the prolonged approval and construction 
process means most will not come on line before 2002. 
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