Recently in Markets Category

Is it a little starter pistol signaling the start of a California carbon market rush? Impossible to know yet. But the Barclays Capital carbon allowance deal with NRG Power Marketing, announced Wednesday, reminds us that companies that have toiled to set themselves up for a lucrative US carbon market now have only California to look forward to.

Though market-optimist types think Congress sooner or later will enact a carbon trading program, they called it wrong in the case of the Congress just ending and have only the Golden State to bank on right now.

The PJM Interconnection has its own official little sign of economic recovery.

Today PJM said its weather-adjusted peak power demand for this past summer was 1% above last year's, largely because of higher economic activity.

The PJM Interconnection finds itself just where one might expect, given its promotion of demand response as a resource equal to supply. PJM's members now are beginning to struggle with the almost inevitable tension between wholesale and retail regulatory structures and regulation.

It's a tension that begins to get at the long-held observation that wholesale and retail markets really can't be separate, if one wants an effective, competitive marketplace. Of course, given the law that governs the industry -- the Federal Power Act -- the jurisdictional separation looks pretty well cemented. The challenge for PJM, and other organized markets at some point, is to make the wholesale structures and the retail regulation work together.

In the power industry, of course, it's always all about the weather, and the price of natural gas. And in the Pacific Northwest, it's always all about the rain, and the snow, and the snowmelt. The amount of hydropower available there determines what all the other power resources do, and what the wholesale price of power is.

This year and next year are no different ... except that more and more, it's also all about the wind, which adds a management challenge that's tough to meet.

We've written about New York Assemblyman Richard Brodsky slamming the New York Independent System Operator, most lately as part of his campaign for state attorney general. But even if Brodsky does not win that position in November, the man who has it now may take a look at the ISO anyway, in his new role as governor.

That would be Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, who has a happy lead in governor's-race polls. He has a far more measured, even cautiously evenhanded, view of the ISO than Brodsky does, but still he wants to take a look at the issues.

Can probing the New York Independent System Operator generate any buzz around the Empire State?

Launching a salvo on August 2nd in his run for the Democratic nomination for state attorney general, Assemblyman Richard Brodsky picked the ISO as his target. It's true that New York voters have a better chance than most of relating to the subject of electricity, having paid among the highest electricity rates of anyone in the US, for years. But still. As one Albany Times-Union blogger put it, "Brodsky wonks out."

The Edison Electric Institute has beer, wine and light hors d'oeuvres tonight. This is no light event, though. It's for serious power market people to celebrate the 10th anniversary of EEI's Master Agreement, which the organization says "revolutionized power trading."

For all you agreement users thinking of bringing a gift to the party at EEI's Washington offices, the 10th is traditionally the tin or aluminum anniversary, which shouldn't strain the budget. More modern anniversary-observance mavens say, however, that diamonds have become the thing to give, which would be another story altogether.

The comments on the Commodity Futures Trading Commission's energy position-limit proposal are pouring in -- 6,900 as of this writing, to be precise -- as the April 26 deadline looms. A great majority of these comments have come in the shape of form letters, presumably from private citizens, sent via e-mail from public domains such as Yahoo, Gmail and Hotmail.

This might not be the New York Independent System Operator's worst nightmare, but it can't be too pleasing a prospect: Assemblyman Richard Brodsky, who has lambasted the state's power market operator, is running for state attorney general.

It may look a lot like an RTO, and act like one, but the system functions being contemplated by the Western Electricity Coordinating Council would not amount to a regional transmission organization that needs federal approval. The West is still the West, after all.

Which may raise the question: Was it necessary for all the other regional transmission organizations to jump through FERC's hoops? It seemed necessary at the time, and it could be that the Northeast, the Mid-Atlantic, the Midwest and California wouldn't do it differently. But the Western Interconnection is figuring out a way to take on much of an RTO role without having to suffer FERC's hand.