FERC clears companies of intentional outages

- The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission cleared Duke Energy Co. and 100 other energy companies recently of any wrongdoing during the 2000-01 Western energy crisis.

California submitted a 3,000-page report to FERC on March 3 detailing its claims against several of the nation's biggest power providers the state says were responsible for the energy crisis. Although the report's findings have not been made public, California officials said in a public summary that some power plant operators deliberately shut down functional plants, reducing supply and driving up prices. In all, California accused electricity sellers of overcharging utilities, ratepayers and the state at least $7.5 billion.

FERC staff said Aug. 1 that Duke Energy, which owns four power plants in the state, "adequately explained" why outages occurred at its facilities between May 1, 2000 and June 30, 2001. Duke officials said they had little incentive to shut down the plants because the company had locked much of their power into long-term deals with electricity purchasers.

"So far, every time the facts have been put on the table regarding Duke Energy's California operations, they support what we've said all along," said Duke spokesman Pete Sheffield. "And that's that we acted appropriately" (Charlotte Observer, Aug. 2).

Most of the other companies cleared last week did not have a significant impact on California's energy market, but FERC is still investigation four other major energy companies, including AES Corp., Williams Cos., Dynegy Inc., Mirant Corp. and Reliant Resources Inc.