• FEATURE STORY:  Hoecker evaluates Kelliher as FERC chairman

• Michigan utilities sell less than half the gas

• Xcel's new CEO to be a bit different from Brunetti

Michigan utilities sell less than half the gas

LDCs in Michigan were supplying less than half of gas deliveries in Michigan last month, the PSC reports.
     About half the 900 bcf is supplied through large industrial direct purchase programs with another 4% supplied by marketers through customer choice shopping at Michigan Consolidated Gas and Consumers Gas.
     Shopping is growing at MichCon, with about 12% of its customers buying from marketers, up almost 23% from a year ago.
     Shopping fell 15% over the past year at Consumers where less than 6% of customers are shopping.

Xcel's new CEO to be a bit
different from Brunetti

Xcel CEO Richard Kelly doesn't expect the new energy act to have a big impact on Xcel but it will help with transmission by giving faster depreciation and help on siting.
     He appreciates the tax break for clean coal plus a two-year extension for the wind incentives and that gives a planning horizon.
     Repeal of PUHCA is less important because M&A activity "is not how we're going to grow our company." Kelly will look at some bolt-on acquisitions within his service territory.
     Of course that's quite a territory reaching from Canada to Mexico operating in 10 states.
     "We have rate cases going." M&A and rate cases don't go well together, he added.
     How will he grow the company? Back to basics only produces 2-3% annual growth, we observed. But Kelly intends staying with that strategy.

Ohio PUC action was supposed
to keep incumbent prices low

Don't try to confuse price fixers with competition issues

Ohio marketers are wary of FirstEnergy's proposed boost in generation rates but for different reasons.
     FirstEnergy's prices-to-beat were set in its rate stabilization plan (RSP) but it can raise rates to match rising fuel and environmental costs through an add-on charge.
     Though RSP rates don't go into effect until January, the IOU has already asked for $2.55/mwh more to cover rising coal costs.
     WPS Energy Services saw this coming, it told the PUC.
     WPS suspended some municipal aggregations for next year because of the low shopping credits the PUC had approved and high market prices for power, WPS told regulators.

Can Texas regulators screw
up America's best market?

Marketers argue that greater credit curbs -- now being debated by the PUC -- would harm competition by discouraging entry or even forcing out existing retailers.
     The Office of Public Utility Counsel agreed.
     The PUC is weighing risk.
     It has a draft of a new pro-forma retail delivery tariff that would raise credit curbs 500% for marketers to protect grid owners (RT, 8/15).
     Added credit curbs would transfer all financial risk of service to marketers, the Texas Energy Assn for Marketers (TEAM) wrote the PUC.
     That kind of credit boost imbalance contradicts the risk assignment set in Senate Bill 7 that opened up the retail market, TEAM added.