Já imaginaram essa situação ocorrendo aqui… Com todos os problemas sociais que já temos?
Power Supply Woes in California
With California’s power grid strained to the breaking point and customers outraged over soaring bills, angry officials Thursday urged a “ratepayer rebellion” to challenge the industry in the nation’s first deregulated electric market. California’s top utility regulators, after hearing the complaints of consumers whose bills have doubled and even tripled this year, approved a $100 million rebate for electricity consumers in San Diego, the city worst hit by the state’s power crisis. The commission’s unanimous vote followed a two-hour hearing before more than 300 people in a jammed auditorium, in which deregulation was denounced as a human and fiscal disaster. Nobody spoke in support of deregulation.
Moments after the vote, officials who had come to the meeting from San Diego said the action by the Public Utilities Commission was too little, too late, and urged customers to refuse to pay more than what they paid a year ago.
“It is starting here, it is starting now. It is a ratepayer rebellion,” said San Diego Supervisor Dianne Jacob.”We’re telling people to go back to paying what they did in July 1999. What can they do? There are 3 million of us.” She added: “We are on the brink of disaster.”
Power grid areas in New England and New York had similar strains on electricity management in early June. But California is in particular trouble, because its growing tech industry has sharply increased demand. Patrick Dorinson, spokesman for California’s Independent System Operator, which coordinates power sharing between utilities, said California’s energy deregulation hasn’t worked smoothly in conjunction with other traditionally regulated states.
“If you deregulate in California and your neighbors haven’t, you’ve got a lot of different systems out there,” he said. A population boom in places like Phoenix has diminished the amount of power California can import from the Southwest. And in the Pacific Northwest, where the Bonneville Power Administration wholesales power to western states, water has been diverted this summer for such things as salmon runs. High demand and tight supplies mean higher prices — particularly in San Diego, the first area in the nation to purchase power in the open market.
In San Diego and a slice of southern Orange County served by San Diego Gas and Electric Co., bills have jumped 200 percent in some areas, due to factors including deregulation, a sweltering summer and increased power consumption across the Southwest.
Deregulation wasn’t supposed to work this way. A complex 1996 state law sought to boost competition in the state’s $20 billion electrical power industry, then pass on the expected savings to customers. The law will be phased in gradually, from south to north. The state’s largest utility, Pacific Gas and Electric Co., is expected to join deregulation by 2002.
The law, signed by former Gov. Pete Wilson, was generally supported by the electrical industry but viewed with suspicion by consumer groups. “It was ramrodded through the Legislature in two weeks by utility companies who donated more than $3 million to lawmakers that year,” said Harvey Rosenfield, an activist with the Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights in Santa Monica. This year’s cost hikes and continuing power shortages during the summer hot spell — including rolling “brownouts” that hit the San Francisco Bay area in June — have spurred demands of a repeal.
A report prepared by the utility commission staff for Gov. Gray Davis stopped short of recommending that the new system be dismantled. But the 40-page study was sharply critical of deregulation, and predicted dire troubles to come. Under deregulation, private utilities were required to sell off their power plants and open their markets to electrical resellers, and buy power on the open market, paying an amount that may fluctuate from day to day.
California, shunned by some power developers who are uncertain about deregulation, has few power plants in the works. One is scheduled to be completed this year; two others could be finished in 2001 and two more are scheduled in 2002. By comparison, Ohio has a dozen new plants, many of them coming on line this year, said utility commissioner Richard Bilas.
“You can’t have deregulation without new supply,” he said.
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California Energy Providers Entertain Bonanza of Demand for Premium SupplySuppose you owned the last house left on the market in Orange County. And you knew that tomorrow, a thousand buyers would stream through your place ready to make an offer. Would you agree to sell that house for no more than what you paid for it?
That’s about what it’s like for electricity generators in California these days. They own the juice that millions of people need and want. And when demand approaches or even exceeds supply, they can pretty much set their own price. And that’s why Attorney General Bill Lockyer will find it very difficult to prove that the electricity sellers are breaking the law by taking advantage of their sweet spot in a tight market.
Even Lockyer acknowledges the difficulty of his task. "Price gouging," he said in an interview, "is unfortunately not illegal." Price fixing, or collusion, is against the law. And using monopoly power to manipulate prices is also illegal. But so far no one has come up with any evidence to show that California’s electricity market is experiencing anything other than an extreme expression of the law of supply and demand. "To pin somebody for price fixing, you have to demonstrate that they manipulated the price, as a result of some power they had to control a share of the market," said Jane Hall, an economics professor at CSU Fullerton.
"You would have to demonstrate that a number of generators got together and agreed that they were only going to supply a certain amount in order to force the price up. It’s very hard to show and it’s unlikely to have actually happened." The more likely explanation, according to Hall and others, is that generators are lawfully taking advantage of their ability to charge top dollar for a scarce product.
It’s true that some generators only sell their power when demand and prices peak. But John Stout, a vice president of Reliant Energy, which owns five plants in Southern California, said some power plants are so inefficient that they are economical to run only when prices soar. The rest of the year they sit idle.
Before deregulation, when those plants were owned by public utilities, the fixed cost of keeping those plants on standby was spread in rates over the course of the year. But the new private owners of those plants don’t have that luxury.
"We end up having to recover a whole year’s worth of costs in as little as 100 hours or less," he said. A report to Gov. Gray Davis released Wednesday cited an alarming example showing that the price for power increased by 10 times from $49 per megawatt hour to more than $500 between June 29 , 1999, and June 29 of this year, even though demand was almost the same on both days. But Stout said the supply available on the market plummeted from one year to the next because many of the generators have sold their power in advance to out-of-state users. "It’s not collusion. It’s just normal business practice," he said.
David Freeman, general manager of the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, said state officials were reckless in encouraging utilities to sell their power plants before enough new plants were built to meet California’s growing demand.
"There’s always a conspiracy theory and stupidity theory," Freeman said. "I’ve found the stupidity theory answers more things than the conspiracy theory. You don’t have to be a Ph.D. in economics to figure out that a if you have a shortage of something as vital as electricity and you leave it up to the marketplace, prices go through the ceiling."
Suprimento de Energia "Agoniza"na Califórnia
Com o sistema de transmissão utilizado até o ponto de ruptura e consumidores escandalizados com contas de energia nas alturas, aborrecidos oficiais fomentaram uma "rebelião dos pagantes de tarifa" de modo a desafiar a indústria no primeiro mercado desregulamentado da nação. A principal concessionária da Califórnia, depois de ouvir as reclamações de consumidores cujas contas dobraram e mesmo triplicaram esse ano, aprovaram um desconto de 100 milhões de para consumidores em San Diego, a cidade atingida mais fortemente pela crise de energia no estado. A comissão votou unanimemente foi seguida de uma audiência de 2 horas perante mais de 300 pessoas em um auditório superlotado, na qual a desregulamentação foi denunciada como um desastre fiscal e humano. Ninguem falou defendendo o modelo de desregulação.
Momentos depois da votação, oficiais que estiveram na reunião de San Diego disseram que a atitude da Comissão de Concessionárias Públicas foi muito pequena, tardia e provocaram a recusa de pagamento acima do que foi pago ano passado por parte dos consumidores.
"Está começando aqui e agora. É uma rebelião dos pagantes de tarifa" disse a supervisora Dianne Jacob. "Nós estamos dizendo às pessoas que pague o que pagaram em Julho de 99. O que eles podem fazer? Somos 3 milhões ! Estamos no limiar do desastre! – adicionou.
As redes da Nova Inglaterra e Nova York tiveram dificuldades semelhantes no gerenciamento da energia em Junho. Mas a Califórnia está em particular confusão, porque o crescimento de seu parque tecnológico aumentou sua demanda bruscamente. Patrick Dorrison, porta voz do Operador Independente do Sistema que coordena a repartição de energia entre empresas, disse que a desregulamentação da Califórnia não trabalhou em sintonia com outros estados tradicionalmente regulados.
"Se você desregula na Califórnia e seus vizinhos não, você passa a ter sistemas diferentes" disse. Um "boom" populacional em lugares como Phoenix diminui a quantidade de potência que você pode importar do Sudoeste. E no Pacífico Noroeste, onde ocorrem as vendas em bloco da Bonneville Power Administration para os estados do Oeste, a água esteve comprometida durante esse verão por questões tais como a desova dos salmões. Demanda alta e oferta apertada significa preços mais altos – particularmente em San diego, a primeira área nos Estados Unidos a comprar energia no mercado livre.
Em San Diego e numa fatia do sul de Orange County, servidos pela San Diego Gas e Electric Co, as contas pularam 200 % em algumas áreas, devido a fatores incluindo a desregulamentação, um verão escaldante e aumento de consumo ao longo do Sudoeste.
A desregulação não foi imaginada para funcionar desse jeito. Uma lei estadual complexa de 1996 reforçou a competição na indústria estadual de 20 bilhões de dólares e então repassou os ganhos para os consumidores. A lei será aplicada gradualmente do norte ao sul. A maior concessionária estadual, Pacific Gas e Electric Co aderirá a desregulação em 2002.
A lei assinada pelo Gov Pete Wilson, foi em geral apoiada pela indústria elétrica mas vista com suspeição pelos grupos de consumidores.
Tradução a ser continuada breve…
