PGE To Settle Power - Manipulation Charges

Portland General Electric, an Enron Corp. subsidiary, has agreed to pay a reported $8.5 million to resolve claims it illegally manipulated power prices, Oregon's Public Utility Commission said recently.

The settlement approved by the PUC includes a $1.3 million payment to the state and some power consumers.

The remainder of $8.5 million would likely go to California and the city of Tacoma, Wash., which have also argued they were harmed by PGE's actions, although PGE officials said they couldn't discuss those terms under federal rules.

PUC spokesman Bob Valdez said the settlement offer has been approved by California and Tacoma officials.

PGE admitted no violations of federal requirements in the settlement offer but told Oregon's Public Utility Commission that it made errors in public postings of utility transaction prices and that its management practices could have been better.

``We did fall below the line'' of good management by errors on 216 postings out of more than 1,900, the utility's lawyer Jay Dudley told the commission recently.

The tentative settlement plan is to be filed soon with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and would not become final until approved by that agency. If the plan is approved, the commission would not pursue its own investigation into possible misconduct by PGE.

Included in the Oregon payments would be $800,000 to the state commission that eventually would be refunded to PGE customers and $500,000 to some industrial power consumers.

PUC Chairman Lee Beyer said the settlement offer appeared reasonable under the circumstances and added that the utility had a minor role in the Enron trading business.

Federal regulators have spent more than a year investigating transactions between PGE and Enron Power Marketing, Inc., an Enron subsidiary that had power traders working in the same Portland office building as those of PGE.

The trades sent electricity from California to the Northwest and back again to create false congestion on California's energy grid -- allowing Enron to collect ``congestion relief payments'' from a California power system operator even though transmission lines never were overloaded.

Enron's manipulation of power markets during the energy crisis in 2000-01 became known after the company collapsed in bankruptcy in December 2001.

Two former Enron power traders have pleaded guilty to charges of involvement in fraudulent trading schemes. One was Tim Belden, who headed Enron's power trading office in Portland.