BPU President Talks Long-Term Capacity, Purchase of Receivables

Incumbent generators in New Jersey, "don't want competition," New Jersey BPU President Lee Solomon said in opening a National Energy Marketers Association conference on the New Jersey market this morning.

Solomon was addressing the long-term capacity contracts the BPU directed the utilities to sign with several generation developers, in response to the failure of the Reliability Pricing Model. Such contracts were aimed at reducing costs to customers in a competitively neutral manner that did not skew the Basic Generation Service price, but FERC has modified the RPM market in order to subject the contracts to buyer-side mitigation.

Solomon stressed that if there is an open and competitive market -- a truly open and truly competitive market, that is not subject to gaming, fixing, or favor -- then New Jersey policymakers are in favor of it. With respect to the generation market, if such a market exists in New Jersey, "please point it out to me," Solomon said -- because it doesn't exist.

Turning to retail issues, Solomon was optimistic about implementing Purchase of Receivables in New Jersey, stating that stakeholders have been building consensus around the issue, and that implementing POR is "not complicated."

Solomon also said that he is committed to creating a level playing field for third party energy suppliers, as he believes such an environment is necessary to make New Jersey a competitive business environment.