Instead, the company has found a gold mine in selling electricity to other power companies. PPL's power plants and the division that brokers wholesale power, PPL EnergyPlus, accounted for 77 percent of PPL's record-breaking profits in 2000. The development would also include building a bridge from the existing company headquarters across Ninth Street to the new building and a 1,000-car parking deck. That's where the action is. That action involves the constant buying and selling of electricity, now that the power-supply business is deregulated.
Prices can rise and fall moment to moment, and deals are made on the fly.
It's similar to the frenzied action of a traditional commodities exchange, but instead of buying, selling and betting on future prices of pork bellies and soybeans, the market is about electricity. At EnergyPlus the trading floor is a high-tech room that uses the latest in computer and communications equipment to monitor electricity markets, weather conditions and PPL's power plants. The future EnergyPlus headquarters, whether it's in downtown Allentown or elsewhere, will house an expanded trading floor for the company's eastern North America trading operations, the company has said. EnergyPlus also has a rapidly growing West Coast trading floor in Montana, where PPL owns power plants. PPL Chief Executive Officer William Hecht said EnergyPlus plans to increase trading and marketing employment by at least 20 percent.