Energy Legal Blog

PR News announced that Bracewell & Giuliani’s Energy Legal Blog will be recognized as the best “Legal PR Blog” at its annual Corporate Social Responsibility & Legal Awards Luncheon on February 24, 2010 at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. This award recognizes an outstanding and influential law-related weblog or online journal written by a representative of the organization with the goal of espousing the brand or a certain message and written with flair and personality.

“Managing a crisis and working with legal counsel are two areas of communication that will always be a part of a PR professional’s responsibilities,” notes Diane Schwartz, vice president of PR News. “The Legal PR Awards shines a light both on how law firms are communicating to their stakeholders and to how the PR industry is in the driver’s seat when a crisis hits.”

More information on the award program and this year’s winners is available at http://www.prnewsonline.com/awards/csr2009_event-finalists.html.

California Attorney General Jerry Brown filed a complaint on May 22 against 18 named sellers who made sales to the California Energy Resources Scheduling (CERS) Division of the California Department of Water Resources eight years ago from January 18 to June 20, 2001.   The complaint alleges, among other things, that the named respondent sellers:  (1) possessed and exercised undue market power in markets in which CERS was forced to purchase; (2) manipulated these markets by use of gaming practices and physical and economic withholding; and (3) violated their market-based rate tariffs by failing to properly report these sales.  The Attorney General also asserts that FERC’s quarterly transaction reporting requirements in place prior to Order 2001 and market-based rate program in effect during 2000-2001 were insufficient to provide the Commission or other interested parties with the information they needed to evaluate whether sellers had acquired or were exercising market power.   (more…)

After protracted delays, the California Independent System Operator (ISO) launched operations in its long-awaited, new wholesale market on April 1, 2009.  The ISO touted its new “Market Redesign and Technology Upgrade” (MRTU) market as making the wholesale power grid in California “more high-tech, friendlier to diverse resources, and sending key signals for when and where to expand infrastructure.”  The ISO also believes the new market will allow it to be more efficient at buying, selling, and delivering power, and to prepare for technological advances in the future, such as smart grid and demand response technology.  Among the new features in the MRTU market are:  (1) a day-ahead energy market; (2) a full network model that analyzes generation and transmission schedules a day in advance to manage or avoid bottlenecks in real-time; (3) locational marginal pricing, which prices electricity based on the costs of generating and delivering electricity at particular locations; and (4) financial transmission rights (known as “congestion revenue rights”). (more…)

The writing appears to be on the wall for FERC’s contested decision to tag retroactively financial-only traders in the Midwest ISO (MISO) with past Revenue Sufficiency Guarantee (RSG) charges.   The writing on the wall comes in the form of a February 27 decision of a unanimous three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit in City of Anaheim v. FERC, which struck down FERC orders that retroactively increased the invoices to purchasers from western power generators who had been required to sell power during the 2000-01 California energy crisis pursuant to “must-offer” obligations that the Secretary of Energy imposed on them. (more…)

One of the largest utilities in California, Pacific Gas and Electric Company (“PG&E”), has signed two contracts to purchase up to 800 MW of power from two new solar plants that will be constructed by photovoltaic (PV) systems manufacturers, OptiSolar, Inc. and SunPower Corp., on the Carrizo Plain in San Luis Obispo County, California.  Once completed, the new plants will dwarf existing solar plants' generating capacity.  The deal has been heralded by industry observers as a momentous step forward for the development of large-scale solar projects.  However, both agreements are contingent upon renewal of the federal investment tax credit, which is currently stalled in Congress.

Under the agreements, PG&E will purchase 550 MW of solar power from Topaz Solar Farms LLC (owned by OptiSolar), and another 250 MW of solar power from High Plains Ranch II LLC (owned by SunPower).  The OptiSolar plant is expected to come on-line in 2012, and the SunPower plant expects to begin delivering power in 2010 and to be fully operational by 2012.  While the companies will use different PV technology, both plan to deliver solar power to PG&E at prices comparable to other forms of renewable energy, although the exact prices were not disclosed publicly.  PG&E will use the solar power to satisfy California's substantial renewable portfolio standard, which requires the state's utilities to obtain 20% of their power from renewable energy by 2010.

The City and County of San Francisco Board of Supervisors on June 10, 2008, approved a program that will create a fund to provide rebates for residents and businesses that install solar power systems. Under the Solar Energy Incentive Program, the nation's largest municipal solar program, residents could receive between $3,000 and $6,000 for photovoltaic systems. Businesses could receive $1,500 per kilowatt installed, with a cap of $10,000 per building. The 10-year program will use up to $50 million from the city's energy-conservation account. The Board of Supervisors also voted to approve a complimentary one-year pilot program that would budget $1.5 million to buildings owned and operated by low-income residents and non-profit organizations.

The Solar Energy Incentive Program would supplement incentives from the federal investment tax credit and the California Solar Initiative. Creation of the program is propitious since the federal investment tax credit is set to expire at the end of this year.

Supervisor Dufty, a co-sponsor of the measure, believes that the program will provide an important opportunity to encourage the development of the solar industry in San Francisco. The incentives provided by the program will help with installation costs, which are more expensive in San Francisco than in surrounding counties. The program also seeks to help San Francisco increase its amount of solar generation. Currently, the city ranks last in the Bay Area in terms of the solar energy installed per capita, according to data compiled by the California Energy Commission and the California Public Utilities Commission.