Archives

PUR Guide 2012 Fully Updated Version

Available NOW!

This comprehensive self-study certification course is designed to teach the novice or pro everything they need to understand and succeed in every phase of the public utilities business.

Order Now

CAISO

Trading on a Knife Edge

A few months back, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission directed Deutsche Bank Energy Trading LLC to show cause why it shouldn’t be assessed a civil penalty of $1.5 million and be made to return some $123,000 in allegedly unjust profits from power trading in markets run by the California ISO.

Image: 
In referring the Deutsche Bank matter to FERC for possible enforcement action, the California ISO’s department of market monitoring found that DBET traders had established a pattern of circular trading, by purchasing power exports out of CAISO at the Silver Peak intertie node, moving them across Sierra Pacific Power transmission to the Summit node (the E-Tag dotted line), and re-importing the same power back into CAISO, to be wheeled back to the starting point, in a manner “inconsistent with ISO and FERC ma
This figure depicts a hypothetical combination of supply and demand bids that could’ve created a situation of “degeneracy” at the Silver Peak intertie node, by which the market-efficient, security-constrained, least-cost dispatch solution under the California ISO market tariff could’ve indicated not a single, unique market-clearing locational marginal price (LMP), but a range of prices, falling between the lowest-priced supply bid (import bid) and the highest-priced demand bid (export bid)—any one of which
Category: 
Commission Watch
Author Bio: 

Bruce W. Radford is publisher of Public Utilities Fortnightly.

The Deutsche Bank case and the meaning of ‘price manipulation.’

CPUC Targets Privacy Worries

Setting the Standard for Smart Meter Data Privacy
The California Public Utility Commission’s recent proposed rule aims to protect customer privacy while also facilitating third-party access to smart meter data for energy management, demand response and other customer service applications. But does it go far enough?