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Pastimes : Home on the range where the buffalo roam -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Boplicity who wrote (1338)	6/4/2001 1:55:59 PM
From: DOUG H	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 13815

www0.mercurycenter.com Published Monday, June 4, 2001, in the San Jose Mercury News Conservation efforts cut energy use by 11 percent `REMARKABLE' RESPONSE EASED DEMAND IN MAY BY MICHAEL BAZELEY Mercury News All those light bulbs and appliances that Californians switched off last month added up to an 11 percent drop in electrical use compared with last May, state officials said Sunday, as residents and businesses continued to respond to the state's power crisis. Managers of the state power grid said similar conservation efforts this summer could make a ``huge dent'' in supply problems and help the state avoid blackouts. ``Eleven percent is enormous. They're taking megawatts off the grid by conserving,'' said Stephanie McCorkle, spokeswoman for the California Independent System Operator. There are no guarantees such savings will translate to fewer blackouts this summer, power officials said, but they reduced the load in May when the state sweated over record temperatures and two days of blackouts. Officials were particularly pleased with the reduction during peak usage, in the late afternoon and early evening. During peak periods, electrical use was down 10.4 percent over May 2000, after factoring in differences in weather, Gov. Gray Davis' top energy advisers said. That's an improvement over April, when peak usage dropped by 9 percent compared with last year. The non-peak drop was higher, making the overall reduction 11 percent. All told, California businesses and households in May saved about 3,800 megawatts of electricity a day, or enough to power about 3.8 million homes. State officials are hoping conservation, along with several long-term power contracts signed last month, will help make life easier for state power buyers heading into the summer. ``We thought May and June would be our most difficult months,'' Steve Larson, executive director of the California Energy Commission, said during a conference call with reporters. ``It's been fairly remarkable since January the way people have responded to the governor's call for conservation.'' Fearful that a power shortage could lead to frequent blackouts this summer, Davis has implored Californians to conserve 10 percent or more. Davis' 20/20 program -- which offers residents 20 percent rebates on their utility bills if they use 20 percent less electricity than they did last summer -- goes into effect this month, raising hopes that the conservation numbers could go even higher. At the same time, administration officials said Sunday they signed nine long-term power contracts in May, reducing the amount of electricity the state has to buy on the volatile spot market. Since earlier this year, state officials have been buying about 30 to 40 percent of all the power used in California at a cost of about $66 million a day. The state's financially troubled utilities are buying or producing the rest. The new contracts will generate about 900 megawatts of electricity a day, or enough for about 900,000 homes. That means state officials are buying about one-fourth of their power from the spot market, where the daily price can fluctuate wildly, said Ray Hart, deputy director of the state Department of Water Resources. Hart said prices on the spot market are coming down, but he wouldn't provide details. Administration officials also said they feel good about the situation with small power generators, a critical source of power that has been mired in controversy in recent months. Many of the generators, who supply up to a third of the state's power, had shut down or scaled back production when the utilities stopped paying them. Richard Sklar, energy adviser to the governor, said most of those so-called ``qualifying facilities,'' or QFs, are now back on line. But a representative of the generators said last week that many of the plants are still operating at less than full power until they get paid by the utilities. On Friday, the state's top energy regulator said she wants to try to bring the plants all the way back online by forcing the utilities to start chipping away at the approximately $1.5 billion owed to the generators. Public Utilities Commission President Loretta Lynch released a proposed order Friday that would require the utilities to cover 15 percent of the back pay for generators who can prove they need the money to operate. A spokesman for the generators said the partial payments might allow some power producers to increase production, but he questioned why generators would have to prove they need the money. ``This will definitely help, yes,'' said Jan Smutny-Jones, executive director of the Independent Energy Producers. ``But to have to show economic harm to get paid what you're owed doesn't make sense.''