Power To The People May Have Costs Officials To Consider Future Where Customers Have Choice Of Power Companies

It’s 10 a.m. on a Tuesday in 2005 and you’re snuggled in bed, surrounded by tissues and orange juice, trying to sleep off a bad cold.

The phone rings. Oh no, you think, not again.

“Good morning, I’m calling to see if you’ve heard about Sunshine Electric’s special all-solar electricity offer,” a woman chirps brightly. “Imagine powering all your home appliances with energy straight from the sun, for just pennies more per day than Big Time Power!”

Aargh, you think, another call trying to convince me to change my power company.

That scenario could come true within the next decade, power-industry analysts say. People may be able to shop for their power company the way they shop for their telephone long-distance carrier.

On Thursday, the governors of Washington, Oregon, Idaho and Montana will gather in Seattle to kick off a yearlong review of the options and controversies that are likely to arise in the near future as the public’s power options expand.

The review will be conducted by 15 people, plus five non-voting members who are active in the energy industry. The committee, which was chosen by the four governors, also will consult with Northwest Indian tribes and the federal government.

Before electricity becomes a market commodity, some analysts believe, there are complications that need to be sorted out - possibly by rewriting state and federal laws.

For example, the Bonneville Power Administration and other public utilities still owe billions for two unfinished nuclear plants in Hanford and Satsop. The plants were intended to supply, among others, households in the Northwest.

But Northwesterners may choose to buy cheaper power from sources outside the area. Bonneville and the other utilities would then be stuck with the nuclear-power debt - and have few customers to help pay it.

“This is a chance for the region to show some consensus on what we want to do,” said John Harrison, spokesman for the Northwest Power Planning Council, which coordinated the upcoming meeting.

“We’re all going to have a lot more choice than we do now,” he said. “We all need to work together to see what in the current system we want to preserve, and what we want to change.”

The subject of the review may sound rather dry: A comprehensive analysis of the Northwest energy system, with recommendations to be forwarded to the four governors, state legislatures, and to Congress.

But the committee’s recommendations may shape the Northwest for decades to come, Harrison said.

“Energy and the price of energy affects everything we do in this economy,” he said. “All of that is put at risk in a competitive marketplace. We could end up with some plants we don’t want, or we could end up importing energy from sources we don’t like, that pollute.”

That’s because when people buy things in a competitive, open marketplace, there often isn’t much value placed on long-term planning, said Jim DiPeso of the Northwest Conservation Act Coalition, an energy-industry watchdog organization.

The most popular energy companies may turn out to be those that supply the cheapest power - even though it may come from polluting, coal-burning plants, he said.

The four governors have given the review committee one year to work on their recommendations. The committee itself will decide when to meet and what exactly to work on, Harrison said.

Possible topics: Should nuclear debts be parceled out to ratepayers, rather than to utilities? How should power be marketed? How can conservation programs be encouraged in an open market? Which federal and state laws would need to be changed to meet the committee’s goals?

Many of the committee’s meetings will likely be open to the public, Harrison said. The committee will ask for comments from the public before publishing final results, he said.

The following fields overflowed: CREDIT = Scripps-McClatchy Western Service