US FERC Announces Study Of Elec Transmission Bottlenecks

- The U.S. Federal Regulatory Commission announced Wednesday a staff study of electricity transmission constraints that cost consumers hundreds of millions of dollars a year.

The commission also signaled its intent to take action to alleviate problems identified by the investigation.

The staff intends to complete the study by Nov. 7, depending on cooperation by the North American Electric Reliability Council and the Western System Coordinating Council. The study is intended to identify significant transmission constraints and assess their cost for consumers.

Providing early examples, the staff noted that transmission constraints in California's "PATH 15" transmission corridor added $73 million in consumer costs in December 2000, and transmission constraints in New York's congested Central East Interface added $19 million in consumer costs in August 2001.

The staff told the commission that addressing the problem will require action by FERC, because transmission-owning utilities don't have an incentive to eliminate the bottlenecks that drive up power revenue.

FERC also said it would hold four open meetings in various regions of the country as part of its effort to address energy infrastructure issues. The first meeting will be in Seattle in early November. It will be followed by a meeting in the Northeast in December or early 2002. Meetings in the South and the Midwest will take place later in 2002.

FERC will forward the findings of its transmission constraint study to the U.S. Department of Energy, which is carrying out the Bush administration's energy-policy mandate to explore steps needed to establish a national electricity grid.