PUC Seeks "Preferred Solution" To High Wholesale Prices

Staff of the New Hampshire PUC have invited stakeholders to offer, "written description of [their] preferred solution to address the high winter wholesale electricity prices that have plagued New Hampshire's and the region's electricity markets in recent winters."

Staff's invitation came in a docket (IR 15-124) examining potential approaches to ameliorate adverse wholesale electricity market conditions in the state. Although a focus is gas-resource constraint problems, and although default service procurement is specifically the subject of a separate docket (IR 14-338), broad invitations for solutions to high wholesale power prices would make us wary, particularly given the broad scope of statutes previously said to be implicated by the docket (click here to see prior story).

Staff specifically sought comments on pipeline-based, LNG-based, and energy-efficiency-based solutions to high wholesale prices.