This Article appears to be addressing the letter sent by Steve Hall, via the IEP, to the CAISO.  Its good reading.

-Kit

Published Thursday, August 16, 2001 


Group questions power payments
POWER CRISIS 
By Mike Taugher
CONTRA COSTA TIMES 


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


An industry trade group asked market officials on Wednesday why they have failed to pay more than $1 billion for power sold during April and May.

"For some reason, the money is not getting from the ratepayers to the generators," said Jan Smutny-Jones, director of the Independent Energy Producers Association. "Our hope is that this is a temporary misunderstanding."

Part of the answer, officials said, is that the state's power-buying agency is refusing to pay its bills in full until it gets more information about who ultimately receives the cash.

Compounding the problem is the fact that when the May bills began coming due earlier this month, some market participants who were owed money from previous months credited their own accounts instead of paying in full, according to the Independent System Operator.

That left the ISO less able to pay its May bills, said ISO President and CEO Terry Winter in a written statement.

"The ISO acknowledges that past debt is due," Winter said in the statement.

Winter said the ISO would respond more fully to address questions about the underpayments by Friday. But in response to the IEP letter, he demanded that market participants quit crediting their own bills.

The ISO runs the spot markets in California. Buyers and sellers make their bids through the ISO, which sets the market price based on those bids, collects payments from the buyers and divvies them up to the sellers. 

The issue came to a head Wednesday when the IEP sent a letter to the ISO, demanding to know why generators were not paid in full for electricity sold in April and May. Smutny-Jones said estimates of unpaid amounts during that period ranged around $1.2 billion.

In early April, federal regulations went into effect that essentially barred the financially broke utilities from buying power in the ISO market. That forced the state Department of Water Resources, which began buying electricity in January, to pick up the entire unmet need of the utilities' customers.

DWR spokesman Oscar Hidalgo said that the state is required to compile certain information about bills it pays before it pays them. 

"We haven't been given what we feel is an adequate accounting of what we're going to be paid for," Hidalgo said. "We are working with the ISO to see how we can get some of that information that we're not getting."

ISO spokesman Gregg Fishman said his agency is working with the water department, but that market tariffs require that some information be kept confidential.

"We can't tell one market participant what another market participant is doing," Fishman said.



 




-----Original Message-----
From: Hall, Steve C. 
Sent: Tuesday, August 14, 2001 3:55 PM
To: Belden, Tim; Yoder, Christian; O'Neil, Murray P.; Foster, Chris H.;
Williams III, Bill; Stokley, Chris; Blair, Kit
Subject: FW: Letter sent to the ISO on creditworthiness


IEP decided to send our letter to the ISO inquiring about the creditworthiness of certain SCs, like CDWR.  Let's see what happens.

Steve
-----Original Message-----
From: Mara, Susan 
Sent: Tuesday, August 14, 2001 2:32 PM
To: Hall, Steve C.
Subject: FW: Letter sent to the ISO on creditworthiness




-----Original Message-----
From: Katie Kaplan [mailto:kaplan@iepa.com]
Sent: Tuesday, August 14, 2001 11:11 AM
To: Alan Comnes (E-mail); Bill Woods (E-mail); Bob Ellery (E-mail);
Brian T. Cragg (E-mail); Carolyn A Baker (E-mail); Curtis Hatton
(E-mail); Curtis Kebler (E-mail); Parquet, David; 'Dean Nistetter';
Douglas Kerner (E-mail); Duane Nelsen (E-mail); 'Ed Wheless'; Eric
Eisenman (E-mail); George Vaughn (E-mail); Greg Blue (E-mail); Jack
Pigott (E-mail); 'JoAnn Van Buren'; Joe Ronan (E-mail); John G. Larrea
(E-mail); Ken Hoffman (E-mail); Kent Palmerton (E-mail); Fillinger,
Mark; Mark J. Smith (E-mail); Marty McFadden (E-mail); Nam Nguyen
(E-mail); 'Rachel King'; Randall J. Hickok (E-mail); Roger Pelote
(E-mail); Ross Ain (E-mail); Scott Sadler (E-mail); Steve Ponder
(E-mail); Steve Schleimer (E-mail); Susan J Mara (E-mail); Tom Hartman
(E-mail); Ward Scobee (E-mail); William Hall (E-mail)
Cc: Andy Brown (E-mail); 'Carol Hudson (E-mail)'; 'Jan Smutny-Jones
(E-mail)'; Jean Munoz (E-mail); 'Katie Kaplan (E-mail)'; Sandra Moseley
(E-mail); 'Steven Kelly (E-mail)'; Thomas R. McMorrow (E-mail)
Subject: Letter sent to the ISO on creditworthiness


Greetings:

Attached please find the final letter sent to the ISO on creditworthiness.
Thank you to all who provided input and feedback on the letter.

Thanks,

Katie Kaplan
Manager of State Policy Affairs
Independent Energy Producers Association
(916) 448-9499