1

Mr. Chairman and Commissioners, good afternoon. I am here to present the Office 

of Enforcement’s view into electric power markets outside the RTOs – that is, in the 

West and the Southeast. This presentation will be posted on the Commission’s 

Web site today.
2

Non-RTO Areas 

in the West and Southeast

Source: Derived from FERC analysis.

The slide highlights the Southeast and the West outside California. Together these 

regions account for about 40% of both total load and total generating capacity in the 

United States. The non-RTO West also accounts for a large proportion of the 

Nation’s potential energy reserves. Both regions use bilateral electric power 

markets and depend on them for crucial aspects of their functioning. But the nature 

and role of the bilateral markets differs substantially between the two regions. 
3

Forms of Bilateral 

Market Monitoring

 Individual Company Reports

 Complaints

 Market Oversight at the Commission

We have heard today from the market monitors for the RTOs. Outside RTOs, the challenges of monitoring markets are 

different and, in some ways, more difficult. In bilateral markets, participants can conclude deals on many different 

platforms. Much of the information in this presentation comes from the Intercontinental Exchange – ICE – because it is a 

major trading platform, and we have ready access to much of its information. But market participants can as easily use 

an array of voice brokers to make deals – or they can simply talk directly with possible counter-parties. In short, in nonRTO regions, there is no central market institution to serve as the primary focus for market monitoring. So the strategies 

for monitoring these markets must be different.

The Commission currently oversees the bilateral markets in three main ways: individual company reports, responses to 

complaints and internal oversight efforts. The first two approaches address possible abuse of transmission by individual 

companies. The third seeks to understand how the larger regional markets work. 

We receive formal market reports from six individual companies. Five have individual company monitors – Potomac 

Economics in all five cases. Four of these are in the West or the Southeast: Arizona Public Service, Pacificorp, Public 

Service Company of New Mexico and Duke Energy, Carolinas. Potomac Economics submits a report on each company 

quarterly, focusing especially on the company’s use of transmission. This provides reasonable assurance of the good 

behavior of each company, but does relatively little to understand the larger regional market. Also in the Southeast, 

Entergy uses SPP as its ICT - Independent Coordinator of Transmission. The ICT is not a market monitor in the usual 

sense, but it does provide quarterly reports on the operation of Entergy’s system and the development of its Weekly 

Procurement Process. 

The Commission has an extensive system of accepting and responding to complaints. These can come from the Hot 

Line or from Section 206 complaints. We take care to respond to all of these complaints in an appropriate way. These 

mechanisms are effective at remedying specific problems that arise in both RTO and bilateral markets, but, by 

themselves, provide an incomplete picture of the overall performance of such markets.

The Division of Energy Market Oversight oversees the broader functioning of Western and Southeastern markets. Much 

of this oversight comes from examining a wide variety of data sources. Two of the most important are ICE and the 

Electric Quarterly Report – the EQR – you’ll see examples of both today. We have also begun a pilot project with the 

Southern Company to help us understand better how the Southeastern market works. Southern volunteered to visit us 

periodically to provide its perspective on how Southeastern markets are working. The conversations so far have covered 

everything from showing us which hours Southern either bought or sold power during a recent period to describing the 

company’s view of coal markets. 

We understand that no single company provides a full view of the market, nor do we expect its view to be disinterested. 

We hope that other companies will join Southern in improving our understanding of how markets work in both the 

Southeast and the West. Let me quickly mention in this context that we also talk with State Commission staff in both 

regions in conference calls each month. Those calls have already provided us with an important additional point of view 

in both regions, and we are grateful to the participants on both calls. 
4

Spot Markets: West and Southeast 

Source: ICE and Form 714. (Note that ICE has no contracts within SPP.)

Spot Electric Power Trading on ICE by Region, 

2007, ’000 GW Hours

West 67.8 <0.1 709.8

Southeast 1.5 0.0 802.3

Region Physical Financial Load 

Trading Trading in 2006

Bilateral markets have a mix of both long-term and spot transactions. Today, I am going to focus 

mainly on spot transactions, both to make the focus consistent with most of the reports from RTO 

market monitors, and because the strongest differences among regional markets show up in the way 

spot markets operate. As we shall see, however, spot markets are a relatively small part of the 

overall wholesale market in the Southeast, so a major focus for us going forward will probably be on 

longer-term transactions, at least in that region.

This year’s State of the Markets presentation provided the highest level description of the differences 

for the west and southeast spot electric market regimes in the United States. This slide shows 

transaction volumes from ICE, which provides the clearest view we have into day-ahead and intraday bilateral trading. The slide shows only spot transactions, though ICE accommodates longer-term 

transactions also. 

To review: In regions where RTOs have day-ahead markets, bilateral spot markets act primarily as 

intraday financial derivatives of the prices RTOs produce. The RTO prices are the standard 

benchmark for day-ahead value, and the bilateral spot market becomes a way for market participants 

to tweak their positions during the day.

In the West, bilateral spot markets are far more important. Spot physical transactions account for 

more volume in the West than in any other region of the country. In fact, the bilateral spot market 

appears to be playing some of the same role in day-ahead price discovery in the West that RTO 

markets do in the Northeast and Midwest. Of course, the RTO day-ahead markets are much more 

complex and differentiate much more strongly among locations and timing during the day. But for 

basic daily valuations, the two systems seem to fill similar niches. For Western Spot markets, 

financial instruments are unimportant.

In the Southeast, bilateral spot markets are much smaller, at least according to ICE data. They are 

entirely physical, but less than one fortieth the size of their counterparts in the West. The 

Southeastern spot markets appear to be a residual market for small amounts of power traded after 

the integrated utilities have handled most of their own loads. It is unlikely that they serve a major 

price discovery role – the spot markets are simply too small overall. Nonetheless, bilateral spot 

markets are important at the margin, and can become quite important during periods of system 

stress. 
5

Roots of Western Power Markets 

Source: Derived from Energy Velocity data.

The roots of Western power markets reach back into the 1930s, with the 

development of very large hydropower reserves in both the Pacific Northwest and 

the Colorado River Basin. As demand in California grew, the need for long-distance 

transmission became clearer and clearer. As the slide shows, the first major intertie 

from the Pacific Northwest to California dates to the 1970s. Thereafter, the West 

became an increasingly integrated electric system, dependent on moving large 

quantities of bulk power over large distances.

As a result, when electric markets became possible toward the end of the century, 

the West had a very large commercial need to develop ways to trade power over 

long distances. At heart, that remains the basis of today’s Western power markets.
6

Price Differences Drive 

Western Power Markets

-$15

-$10

-$5

$0

$5

$10

$15

$20

$25

$30

1-

02

7-

02

1-

03

7-

03

1-

04

7-

04

1-

05

7-

05

1-

06

7-

06

1-

07

7-

07

1-

08

SP15-MIDC SP15-PALO

Derived from Platts Spot Prices.

Western power markets still display considerably different valuations for power in 

different sub-regions. The slide shows the difference in valuation by month between 

the Northwest and southern California (the blue line) and the Southwest and 

Southern California (the orange line). The difference of values are especially 

important for the Pacific Northwest, where the availability of hydropower is not 

entirely predictable over the long run, and where hydropower plays a major role in 

determining what power is available for trade and at what prices. There are also 

significant differences between California and the Southwest. Market participants 

need ready access to markets where they can arbitrage the differences and make 

power move from areas with plentiful cheap supplies to areas where it is more 

valuable. 
7

Relative Volumes of ICE Spot Physical 

Trades at Western Hubs in 2007

Trading Hub 2007 Volume

(Million MWh)

SP-15 23.1

Mid C 15.6

NP-15 10.3

Palo 8.6

COB 3.4

Mead 2.7

Four Corners 2.4

Mona 0.6

Other 1.4

Source: Derived from ICE data.

The trade press began to report prices for Western electric spot markets in the 1990s. 

By that time, there was a compelling commercial need to create such markets and 

report on them. In this respect, they resemble natural gas markets that emerged 

slightly earlier for similar reasons. As with natural gas markets, Western spot electric 

markets differentiate the most commercially important price differences. This slide 

shows that the largest spot trading occurs in four places: mid-Columbia in the 

Northwest, NP-15 and SP-15 in California and Palo Verde in Arizona. Several other 

points – the California-Oregon Border (COB), Lake Mead in Nevada, and Four Corners 

in the Southwest are also significant spot trading points. Each trades peak and offpeak power. 

Those who are used to RTOs will find these distinctions rudimentary, compared with 

the hourly prices that are available for thousands of nodes in RTO markets. Western 

bilateral markets simply do not reflect the detailed differences in valuation that are the 

hallmark of RTO markets. Nonetheless, the Western markets do reflect the most

important differences in commercial value for both location and timing. They also 

provide simplicity and convenience at relatively low cost. The point is not that one 

model is inherently better or worse than the other. Each grew up in a different historical 

context, and each serves different functions.

As we have heard today, CAISO expects to implement MRTU in the fairly near future. 

If the Western experience follows precedents from the East, the existence of an ISO 

day-ahead market will change the nature of the bilateral market. In particular, CAISO’s

day-ahead market is likely to become the primary pricing vehicle for spot power 

transactions within California, replacing that function for the current bilateral market at 

SP-15 and NP-15. It is less likely to displace the price discovery function for points that 

often show quite different prices from California – for example, Mid-Columbia.
8

Long-Term Financial Trading 

Dominate Western Power Markets

Trading Hub Spot Long-term Spot Long-term

SP-15 23.1 1.8 — 480.5

Mid C 15.6 2.6 — 128.5

NP-15 10.3 0.2 — 23.1

Palo 8.6 0.2 — 16.9

Millions of MWhs Physical Financial

Source: Derived from ICE data. Spot includes daily and hourly deals. Long-term includes quarterly and longer deals.

Total Volume of Trades in 2007

Market participants also trade long-term power in the West. At least on ICE, the 

physical side of the longer term market is relatively small, compared both to the 

physical spot market and to longer-term financial markets. Long-term physical ICE 

deals are most prevalent in the Northwest. Of course, there are also many company 

to company long-term contracts that do not use ICE.

The bulk of long-term Western trade on ICE occurs financially. As is true in many 

commodity markets, this financial trading dwarfs the related physical trading. And it 

is very heavily concentrated at SP-15 and, to a lesser extent, at Mid-Columbia. This 

also is consistent with many financial commodity markets that tend to concentrate 

on a small number of delivery points. Cinergy Hub, NEPool and PJM West play a 

similar role in long-term Eastern financial power markets. In the case of the West, it 

makes sense to concentrate at SP-15 – that is the largest consuming area in the 

region, and over the long term, prices are fairly similar between Southern California 

and the desert Southwest. That is, it makes sense to arbitrage the CaliforniaSouthwest price differences in daily markets, but not in long term markets. It also 

makes sense that there is considerable long-term activity in the Northwest. There 

prices can be quite different over the long term from the prices in California.
9

Western Generation Additions

(Outside California)

Source: Derived from Energy Velocity data.

0

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008

Capacity Additions in Gigawatts

Other Additions

Hydro

Wind

Coal

Natural Gas

Another key aspect of longer-term markets is the amount of new investment taking 

place. The slide shows the amount of new generation coming on line in the West 

outside of California since 2000. As with other regions, there was a large burst of 

new capacity early in the decade, almost all of it fired by natural gas. Since then, 

the region has continued to build a significant amount of new capacity, but with a 

greater diversity of energy sources. Although the majority of capacity additions are 

still gas-fired, wind has become much more important, and there are also some coal 

additions. In any case, NERC reports that reserves are adequate now and projects 

that they will remain so.
10

Delivering the Northern Rockies 

Energy Reserves

Source: Derived from Energy 

Velocity data.

The largest strategic challenge facing the West is how to make use of the energy 

reserves in the Rockies. The states of the northern Rockies – Wyoming, Montana, 

Colorado and Utah have vast stores of potential energy: 

• Coal from the Powder River Basin and other deposits; 

• Natural gas, especially from Wyoming and Colorado; and

• Wind that blows in abundance – as anyone who has spent time in Cheyenne

can attest. 

If the hallmark of Western electric markets so far has been the ability to support 

commerce over wide distances on the West Coast and the Southwest, the next 

challenge will be whether the markets can support the development of the 

infrastructure needed to get Rockies energy to market.

Market participants are working hard to create the infrastructure that will be needed to 

bring Rockies energy to market. In the case of natural gas, they have recently 

completed building Rockies Express into the Midwest, and have a variety of projects to 

build more pipeline capacity in the next few years. For electric power, there has been 

little expansion of the transmission grid so far, but there are many proposals at various 

stages of development.

So far, there has been little spot trading at points in the Rockies. If the West succeeds 

at connecting electric power resources in the Rockies with consuming markets, that is 

likely to change. In the absence of an RTO in the region, Western bilateral spot 

markets would then be likely to provide price discovery for that sub-region as well.
11

The Southeast Power Grid

Source: Derived from Energy Velocity data.

Let me turn to the Southeast. Southeastern power markets also have their roots in 

earlier times. Beginning in the 1960s, and especially in the wake of the New York 

blackout of 1967, the Southeast began to build out its electric transmission grid. 

The slide shows that many of the transmission lines connected large generating 

plants. This was primarily to ensure reliability, but it also had economic 

consequences. One key is that it allowed companies to share reserves better. If a 

company was building a nuclear plant, for example, it was much cheaper to rely on 

a neighbor’s nuclear plant for reliability, rather than having the company build a 

second plant by itself. The result was a gradually more integrated transmission grid 

that enabled reserve sharing. It also made possible more economy transactions –

that is, small trades of power at the margin that could cut costs for both sides.

The second impetus for markets in the Southeast was the need to meet Florida’s 

demand for power. Through the 1970s and 1980s, the region built transmission 

lines to deliver coal by wire into Florida – essentially the same logic that propelled 

the long line transmission lines in the West. This included smaller lines not shown 

on this map. However, the electric links between Florida and the Southeast remain 

relatively small, and have not provided the same basis for a large bilateral spot 

market that one finds in the West. 
12

August 2007, Afternoon Hours 1-5 p.m.

5% of 

All-Time Peak 

Load

Southern Company’s 

Afternoon Spot Purchases

Source: Derived from FERC’s Electric Quarterly Report data.

The state of the Markets presentation reported EQR data for the Southern 

Company. During normal times EQR reports confirmed what Southern had told us, 

that they normally bought or sold less than 1% of their overall supply on spot 

markets. EQR also confirmed that spot markets were more important during 

stressful periods. During last August’s heat wave Southern’s spot purchases rose 

above 5% for the afternoon peak loads on most days. This highlights the 

importance of the spot market to meet unusual peaks, at least for Southern.
13

Southeast Power Markets 

Long-term & Financial

 Long-term contracts predominate

 Many full requirements or purchased 

power contracts

 No financial investments on ICE

Long-term energy transactions are a hallmark of the Southeast. Preliminary 

analysis of EQR data suggests that jurisdictional sellers in the Southeast sell far 

more power under contracts of a year or more than they do through spot 

transactions.

Many – certainly not all - of the long-term sales agreements in the Southeast take 

place under either full requirements contracts (typically between large utilities and 

smaller publicly owned utilities) or long-term purchased power agreements (typically 

between independent power generators and utilities). In both cases, the contracts 

are usually isolated from long-term price risks – except for fuel costs. That is the 

likely explanation of the fact that there is no financial trading of power on ICE for the 

Southeast. If market participants want to hedge their fuel price risk, they can do so 

directly in natural gas or coal markets, and there is relatively little reason for a 

separate hedge for power. To the extent that requirements and purchased power 

contracts are prevalent in the Southeast, it would suggest that the most important 

point for potential competition in the Southeast would be at the stage when a plant 

is being planned, not after it is built. I’ll mention an example of such competition in a 

moment.
14

Southeast Generation Additions

Source: Derived from Energy Velocity data.

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008

Capacity Additions in Gigawatts

Other Additions

Hydro

Wind

Coal

Natural Gas

In the early part of this decade, the Southeast invested heavily in natural gas plants. 

Indeed, most observers would probably say the region over-invested. In any case, 

the region has been growing into that capacity in recent years and has added 

relatively little new generation since 2003. Going forward there seems to be 

increased emphasis in the region on building new baseload capacity, including Plant 

Vogtle, a nuclear plant proposal in Georgia and the Summer Plant, also a nuclear 

plant in South Carolina. In any case, NERC reports that there are adequate 

reserves today and projects that the reserves will remain adequate in the future.
15

0

0.5

1

1.5

2

2.5

3

3.5

7/1 7/19 8/6 8/24 9/11 9/29 10/17 11/4 11/22 12/10 12/28

2007

Bcf/d

Combined Cycle & Steam Gas Turbine

Daily Gas Use in Florida Power Plants

Source: Derived from Bentek data.

Probably the greatest challenge in understanding power markets in the Southeast is a 

lack of visibility into how the systems are operating. Please note that I did not refer to 

transparency. As we learned in talking with the Southern Company, there simply is not 

much of a spot market to see. For example, Southern is active – either buying or 

selling – in the hourly spot market in only about 30 percent of all hours. In effect, there 

just aren’t very many spot market transactions to see, at least judging by Southern’s

experience and ICE data.

Florida provides a particular challenge for market oversight. ICE reports no electric 

power prices for Florida. The trade press reports one spot electric power price for 

Florida – but on most days, those prices rest on no reported volumes. 

In practice, Florida is far more completely integrated into the Nation’s natural gas grid 

than into its electric grid. Our best indication of the marginal cost of power in Florida 

may well come from natural gas reports. Bentek Energy monitors deliveries of natural 

gas to many electric plants around the country, including Florida. This slide shows how 

much gas was scheduled to natural gas plants in Florida and how often gas was 

scheduled to more costly gas turbine units during the second half of last year. This 

shows at least when gas peaking plants were probably running and when they were not 

and provides the first step in understanding the marginal cost of power each day in 

Florida.

In Florida, and to a lesser extent for the whole Southeast, spot power markets are 

simply not active enough to be a primary indication of how the broader wholesale 

market is working or is likely to work. We need instead to work creatively with other 

data sources to gain the kind of understanding that spot markets convey elsewhere. 
16

Competition and Markets 

in the Southeastern Model

 The Case of Georgia

 Competitive Procurement

 Real-time Pricing

The Southeast is not generally known as a hotbed of competition for the electric 

power industry. But States have taken opportunities to use competitive forces to 

the advantage of their rate payers, especially for long-term decisions. Georgia may 

provide the two best examples in this regard.

First, Georgia requires Georgia Power to make almost all of its capacity additions 

through a competitive procurement process. This process begins with a transparent 

stakeholder process to determine an Integrated Resource Plan. It includes an open 

process to design the requests for proposals. Once competitors submit their bids, 

an independent assessor judges the proposals. The Georgia Public Service 

Commission supervises the overall process and makes final decisions. The 

Southern Company says that non-affiliated companies have become more 

competitive with time and that it expects about half of all capacity additions in 

Georgia between 2007 and 2015 to come from non-affiliates. If realized, this would 

still result in a quite concentrated outcome – but it is also a far cry from a traditional 

monopoly.

Second, Georgia allowed many of its publicly-owned utilities to compete with 

Georgia Power to supply large industrial users in the state. Partly in response, 

Georgia Power developed the real-time pricing program that I mentioned earlier this 

year in our State of the Markets Report – one of the most successful real-time 

pricing programs in the country. This kept many industrial customers on Southern’s

system, but it also provided real price signals to real customers – arguably the heart 

of a market outcome.

I do not wish to overstate the case for competition in the Southeast. The Georgia 

examples are not unique, but they are also not common. Still, there is nothing in 

the wholesale model that prevents the growth of such programs.
17

To conclude: both the Western and Southeastern bilateral markets are important, 

but they work quite differently from each other, and both differ deeply from RTO 

markets. 

In the West, we see a market that used existing transmission resources to develop 

markets without central direction, roughly along the lines of the natural gas markets. 

The biggest challenge to this market going forward may be whether it can integrate 

new resources that will require substantial new infrastructure. 

In the Southeast, we see an electric industry that focused primarily on long-term 

investment decisions, mostly within a traditional integrated utility framework. Spot 

electric markets developed as small add-ons to that basic structure, and appear to 

be particularly useful at peak periods. 

That concludes the presentation. I welcome any comments and questions.