News 
2005
| Statement: December 15, 2005 |  View Printable PDF Version |
| Docket Numbers: ER05-1236-000 & ER05-1235-000 |
Statement of Chairman Joseph T. Kelliher on Duke and
MidAmerican ICTs
"Today, the Commission approves two independent coordinator
of transmission (ICT) proposals filed by Duke and MidAmerican.
I refer to them as ICT proposals for purposes of short-hand; the
actual acronyms used by Duke Power and MidAmerican Energy Company
are different, namely "Independent Entity" and "Transmission Service
Coordinator".
"I want to clarify that these filings are unrelated to the
merger orders. They were filed separately from the merger filings,
and the Commission did not approve the mergers conditioned on
the ICTs. As I indicated earlier, Commission merger analysis concentrates
on any competitive harm caused by the merger, not pre-existing
conditions. The Commission is limited in conditioning mergers
to mitigating harm caused by mergers. In the case of the Duke
and MidAmerican mergers, the Commission found that the mergers
posed no competitive harm.
"The Duke and MidAmerican ICT proposals were considered by
the Commission under the "consistent with or superior to" test.
They were both approved because the Commission determined that
assigning certain Open Access Transmission Tariff (OATT) functions
to an independent third party is an improvement over the transmission
service offered under the Duke and MidAmerican OATTs.
"Under these proposals, the ICT will evaluate and approve
transmission service requests, calculate Total Transfer Capacity
and Available Transfer Capability, operation of OASIS, disposition
of interconnection requests, and coordination of transmission
planning.
"These ICT filings vary from each other in some respects.
Approval of MidAmerican ICT proposal is conditional because the
TSC Agreement is incomplete in many areas and there is a need
to eliminate provisions that would impair ICT independence.
"Establishment of these ICTs should provide greater confidence
in the independence and transparency of the operation of the Duke
and MidAmerican transmission systems.
"Both of these ICT filings were voluntary and both meet the
"consistent with or superior to" test under the OATT.
"I support the orders."
| View Printable PDF Version |
