Utilities Discontinue Intercompany Pool

Competition has drained The Intercompany Pool.

Once a planning and trading mechanism sponsored by seven private utilities in the Northwest, the pool will be disbanded in part because members are ever more frequently trying to sell power to the same customers.

“It just didn’t make good business sense anymore,” said Washington Water Power Co. spokeswoman Dana Anderson.

The pool was located in WWP’s headquarters on East Mission, and its nine staff members were employees of the Spokane utility.

Director Bob Eastman said they would be offered the same severance benefits WWP has made available to other workers in recent years.

The pool was formed in 1947. Besides providing a way for members to buy and sell trade among themselves, Eastman said the group once also did resource planning.

That function was phased out as energy markets opened up, he said.

Anderson said electronic bulletin boards and other technological advances eliminated the need for traders to sit in the same room.

, DataTimes