BUFFETT UTILS, CALIF GRID TO UNIFY

Brown seeks to broaden California's clean-energy reach in the West

Chris Megerian, August 29, 2015 (LA Times)

Plans are moving ahead on incorporating the Warren Buffett-owned regulated PacifiCorp utilities, the West’s second biggest transmission system, into the California grid, the West’s biggest system run by the California Independent System Operator (the ISO). The integrated system would allow for the sharing of generation between PacifiCorp’s six states, Utah, Wyoming, Idaho, Oregon, Washington, and part of Northern California, and 1.8 million customers and the ISO’s two states, California and a small part of Nevada, and 30 million customers. Bringing PacifiCorp into ISO operations is expected to open new markets for California’s growing supply of renewables and, though skeptical environmentalists fear California could end up importing PacifiCorp’s fossil fuel-generated electricity, it is expected to reduce coal use, as the 9-month old Energy Imbalance Market between the two systems has done. The new partners seem committed to eventually unifying the entire Western grid. click here for more

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