20060306Comment.pdf

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Jean Jewell
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Ed Howell
Monday, March 06, 2006 11 :24 AM
Jean Jewell; Ed Howell; Gene Fadness; Tonya Clark
Comment acknowledgement
WWW Form Submission:
Monday, March 06, 2006
11:24:05 AM
Case: PAC-E-05-09
Name: Kurt Myers
Street Address: 2525 Fremont Ave.
Ci ty: Idaho Falls
State: 10
ZIP: 83415-3810
Home Telephone: [phone]E-Mail: Kurt. Myers0inl. gov
Company: Idaho National Laboratory
mailing list yes no:
Comment description: I believe that this new contract meets the requirements of the IPUC
by now containing a 90/110 clause and penalties associated with not meeting monthly energyproj ections. The penalty is tied to an "energy only " price instead of the market price
from earlier Idaho Power PURPA wind contracts. This relieves some of the uncertainty for
financers and wind developers, since the penalties are known instead of being tied to a
fluctuating market price. And I believe this contract is slightly better for the public
consumer because if the wind proj ect misses its monthly proj ection, the price is always
lower, instead of with the Idaho Power contract where there could be no penalty formissing a proj ection when market prices are high, which is exactly when the consumer and
power companies need more relief. In my mind, 90/110 is still not the best solution and
results mainly in a reduction in price, not a guarantee of power production for theutili ties and consumers.
That being said, and with the number of wind power plants coming on-line in Idaho in the
next year or so, the IPUC needs to now focus more on what's best for the consumer andoversight of the utili ties. The best way to reduce power prices on a system with
significant integrated wind power is to do day-ahead and hour-ahead forecasting for wind
power production. This is how it's done in countless power systems in the U. S. and around
the world, because those are some of the time frames most important for operation and
balancing of generation and the power grid. The IPUC should push the utilities to do some
forecasting for these shorter time frames, and then this new wind energy can really
benefi t the electricity market for Idaho and surrounding states.
Transaction 10: 361124.
Referred by: http: / /www.puc. state. id. us/ scripts/polyform. dll/ ipuc
User Address: 134.20.164.165
User Hostname: 134.20.164.165