One official said penalties, which are opposed by power plant owners, will be developed but probably not until later this spring. Though the state's energy crunch has eased in the last month, most experts predict more shortages as the weather turns warm and electricity demand climbs this summer. Generators under fire Critics say that since deregulation, the state has been at the mercy of individual power companies and their ability to shut down their own plants for a variety of reasons. Some have accused generators of deliberately withholding power to drive up the price. Plant owners say the shutdowns were needed to perform repairs after running their aging equipment extra hard to meet demand last summer and fall.
Several investigations are pending, but no proof of wrongdoing has emerged.
During that month, even at peak demand times, customers in the ISO's service area never used more than about 33,000 megawatts of electricity. That's far less than the 42,000 megawatts that plants in the ISO area have the capacity to produce. But on many days, between a quarter and a third of that capacity was unavailable because plants were down for scheduled maintenance or unscheduled repairs. In addition, ISO official Philip Pettingill said that unscheduled outages accounted for at least half the lost power capacity on many days in January. Though it was created to run the state's transmission grid, the ISO has emerged as a leading agency on energy issues.