Steve,
Can we contact this Steve Johnson guy and tell him he is a pawn for the state of California... Funny...I don't remember a "near-meltdown", just inept purchasing and load balancing by CERS at the start of August. CERS is consistently completely out of the market. EVERY DAY! They can't even manage to bury their bad trades in 35,000 mws of load!
Humorous article though.
B


 -----Original Message-----
From: 	Hall, Steve C.  
Sent:	Thursday, September 06, 2001 9:23 AM
To:	Foster, Chris H.; Rawson, Lester; Yoder, Christian; Comnes, Alan; Williams III, Bill
Subject:	CAISO claims generators not responding to orders 25% of time; generators blame excessive amounts of uninstructed CDWR power

Published Thursday, Sept. 6, 2001, in the San Jose Mercury News 
Increasingly, plants put grid at risk
POTENTIAL FOR OUTAGES 
: OPERATORS REFUSE
STATE'S REQUESTS TO ADJUST POWER LEVELS 
BY STEVE JOHNSON <mailto:sjohnson@sjmercury.com>
Mercury News 
More than a month after two generators refused state orders to deliver power as promised and triggered a near-meltdown of the Western power grid, California's electrical system continues to be hindered by a growing and potentially dangerous anarchy. 
Officials with the California Independent System Operator say power-plant operators increasingly are refusing the state's directions to adjust their plant power levels up or down to keep the electrical system in balance. Nearly one-fourth of the orders were ignored in July and August, state officials say. 
Refusals have increased steadily from about nine a day in May to more than 160 a day in August. The most serious incident occurred Aug. 2, when two power-plant operators declined to provide the power they promised. That resulted in what authorities called a major frequency drop across the West, with the potential to cause blackouts. 
Concern grows 
Although no outages have been caused so far, Stephanie McCorkle, a spokeswoman for the Independent System Operator, said state officials are deeply concerned. 
``Our operators need a certain amount of certainty when you're running a grid,'' McCorkle said. Unfortunately, ``the level of uncertainty has reached an uncomfortable level for ISO operators.'' 
Why this is happening remains unclear, according to California and power company officials. Jan Smutny-Jones, the ISO's former chairman who heads the Independent Energy Producers Association, which represents generators, said, ``It's very hard to tell'' because a number of factors appear to be at work. 
He and McCorkle agreed that the refusal to follow orders partly stems from a growing frustration by generators over not being paid for power they have supplied the state. In recent weeks, generators have gotten only about 8 cents on the dollar, McCorkle said, noting that the problem largely stems from payments coming late from the California Department of Water Resources, which has been buying power for the state's financially strapped utilities. 
Generators frustrated 
Gary Ackerman, executive director of the Western Power Trading Forum, also blamed the state's new portfolio of long-term power contracts. 
He believes state officials may be forcing those large blocks of contracted electricity onto the grid, to avoid admitting that they bought more than they needed. But inserting those blocks into the system can be complicated, Ackerman said, and often requires difficult-to-make adjustments by other power-plant operators to keep the grid stable. 
Moreover, Ackerman said, the state has been relying increasingly on a computerized system that sends instructions to plant operators when power levels need to be raised or lowered. However, he said, that system can't handle the number of instructions the state is sending. 
``It's like pushing your car from zero to 120 and back to zero, and doing that over and over,'' Ackerman said. ``Your car just wasn't designed to do that.'' 
ISO officials acknowledged that fitting the long-term contracts into the system has been tough. But despite some minor glitches with the computer system, they said, they did not believe it was responsible for generators not doing what they've been told. 
No fines yet 
So far, no generators have been fined for disobeying orders, said Charles Robinson, the ISO's chief counsel. He noted, however, that the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, which is investigating the matter, could decide that fines are warranted. 
But because California is so dependent on generators for its electricity, authorities have to be careful not to alienate power plant operators by penalizing them too harshly, said Mark Ward of the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power. 
``How do you motivate people to do the right thing?'' Ward asked. ``It's not a real simple problem.'' 

Contact Steve Johnson at sjohnson@sjmercury.com <mailto:sjohnson@sjmercury.com> or (408)