Energy, Utilities and Communications Committee

INFORMATIONAL HEARING
Electricity: Status Report of Federal Regulatory and Judicial Proceedings

February 11, 2003

Status of Department of Water Resources Investor-Owned Utility Procurement Transition
 

* On December 19, 2002, California Public Utilities Commission issued an order authorizing three utilities to start purchasing energy to provide for their residual net-short energy requirements. The order also directed utilities to:

• economically dispatch the integrated utility resources with the California Energy Resources Scheduling (CERS) negotiated contracts.
• schedule CERS contracts with the counter parties.
• purchase fuel required for the CERS contracts.
• do settlements for the CERS contracts.

* All of the above functions are presently being done by the three utilities.

* CERS retained the financial and the legal responsibilities of CERS negotiated contracts. Responsibilities include:

• Validation and payment of invoices.
• Validation of performance of counter parties in relation to terms and conditions of contracts.
• Evaluation of actual expenditures under long-term contracts against assumptions in the Revenue Requirement filings.
• Assurance of receiving adequate revenue from customers to pay for debt service and power contract payment.

* CERS staff continuing to work with the three utilities to coordinate the flow of information and data for CERS to conduct its responsibilities of auditing performance of counter parties and payment of invoices.