CSU awaits Enron's bill for four years of energy By Matt Kapko Community editor The Lumberjack 04-10-2002 While the collapse of Enron unfolds and its stronghold on energy trading worldwide becomes known, it is discovered that HSU was in contract with Enron. The contract with Enron was to provide energy to all CSU and UC campuses and went into effect in March 1998. It expired on March 31 -- the same four-year period of deregulation and privatization of California's energy services. The financially enticing aspect of Enron to CSU and UC campuses was its ability to offer energy costs at 5 percent below the frozen tariff set by the Public Utilities Commission said George Wright, HSU chief engineer and energy resources manager. The frozen tariff was a set cost on energy services. An apparent outcome of California's energy crisis is the elimination of a frozen tariff and permitting the fees for energy to fluctuate with the cost. "Through the whole life of the contract, there's been tremendous billing problems," Wright said. "We haven't received bills from them since July of 2001 on our main meter. So billing is a mess." Wright is estimating how much money is owed to Enron for the services that have yet to be billed to HSU. Wright said the CSU campuses receive money for utilities from a general-fund budget provided by the state and the CSU Chancellor's office has hired an accounting firm to deal with Enron. It is setting up an account into which monies equivalent to the expected costs from each campus will be held to pay the bill when it is received. The contract with Enron also provided for each campus to receive an annual document -- the strategic energy plan -- which was intended to outline recommendations for energy conservation projects. Throughout the contract's period, HSU and several other CSU campuses never received this document from Enron. When Gov. Gray Davis eliminated independent system operators for energy, Enron dropped the contract with CSU and UC campuses in February 2001. "We had a contract with Enron. We were able to prevail and forced them to take us back," Wright said. HSU was, in fact, receiving energy services from public utility companies during the five-month-dispute with Enron from February to July 2001. Wright said the CSU and UC systems have signed a new contract with energy provider Pinnacle West Power Plants based in Arizona. The contract is up for renegotiation in October to gauge the effects of energy regulation decisions by the Public Utilities Commission in the coming months. With the new direct-access energy provider comes an expected 2- to 2-1/2-cent increase in cost per kilowatt-hour. Wright said one of the allures of Pinnacle West Power Plants to HSU is that close to 25 percent of its generating capacity is solar energy. Since the strategic energy plan was never received from Enron, HSU has hired Noresco, a national energy services company, which is looking at potential energy conservation projects and renewable energy projects. Noresco is also seriously looking at the potential for a large-scale, solar-power project. Home