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To: Mark Adams who wrote (58644)	1/17/2001 2:22:44 PM
From: flatsville	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 436258

...So, we have a NatGas pricing increase ripple that seems to be aggravated by a demand increase and possibly expanding gross margin demands by IPPs. That demand increase seems most suspect to me, as I don't see power demand as a non-continous type of curve. Demand should ramp in predictable manner, barring weather related blips. Am I supposed to believe someone woke up 9 months ago and decided they needed 30% more power from that point on?... Yes, I think you are supposed to believe that they woke up 9 mos. ago and decided they needed 30% more power...or at least that's what certain parties would like you to believe. But then consider this- John E. Bryson, CEO of Edison International, parent company of Southern California Edison, is now an almost omnipresent image on television, appearing in public service announcements exhorting people to conserve electricity. "It would be valuable to have additional power supply in California, but that is not the problem 95, 96, 97 percent of the hours of the year," Bryson told CNN recently. So there you have it...straight from the horse's mouth...lack of supply (and inversely increased demand) isn't the problem 5-3% of the year. So that leaves us with your question, "Or is there a non-linear response to marginal increase in demand? Seems like the latter- based on the traditional high cost of peaking power. In time I think just how that "non-linear" response to "marginal increase(s)" in demand played out and its role in the crisis will be answered. Further analysis is needed. Studies and documents that might shed some light on how this happened have not been made public. The ISO is sitting on a study they haven't (or won't) make public. The picture we have now is not very clear. But I've found a few clues that can't be ignored: A report by the ISO's market surveillance committee concluded that traders had successfully used bidding behavior in various strategies to raise prices this summer. and Detmers, the ISO's operations chief, vigorously denied that California generators were underproducing this summer. which jives with this: The preliminary conclusion of the private investigation has proven to be controversial. McCullough announced last week that California had plenty of power-generating capacity this summer ---- an average 32 percent surplus during the state's first 36 power emergencies.