By David L. Cruthirds

Greetings. I’d like to say hello to long-time readers from The Cruthirds Report and introduce myself to RTO Insider’s readers and subscribers. After 11 years of writing and reporting on regulatory issues in the Southeast and Midwest for The Cruthirds Report, I decided to suspend operations and start a new chapter of my career.

I will be writing periodic articles and columns for RTO Insider during my transition, and I look forward to sharing news, insights and observations about noteworthy industry developments with RTO Insider’s readers. I appreciate Rich Heidorn Jr. for providing me with this opportunity, and encourage readers to provide feedback and engage in dialogue on anything they see in one of my columns.

Seams, Anti-Trust Practices and Boondoggles

I’ve written extensively on issues such as the costly seams dispute between MISO and its neighbors that include SPP, the Tennessee Valley Authority and Southern Co. The power flows across MISO’s neighbors were clearly foreseeable from the December 2013 integration of Entergy into MISO, but MISO overplayed its hand by relying on a provision in the MISO-SPP joint operating agreement rather than negotiating a new agreement during the two-year Entergy integration process.

I’ve also commented on the U.S. Department of Justice’s still unresolved investigation of Entergy’s transmission and power procurement practices that decimated the merchant power sector in its region.

Other important and ongoing issues of note include Southern’s colossal disaster at the Kemper integrated gasification combined-cycle (IGCC) project in Mississippi. Southern used its political machine to force the project through the Mississippi Public Service Commission despite clear indications that low natural gas prices from the “shale gale” would make the project extremely uneconomic compared to other alternatives. Southern exacerbated the harm to Mississippi Power’s ratepayers and its own stockholders by seriously mismanaging the engineering, procurement and construction aspects of the project, which is based on Southern’s proprietary IGCC technology. So much for utility self-build projects having less risk than market alternatives!

Write it Big & Tall – Or Not at All

As you can see, I’m not shy about taking on controversial issues in my role as an “equal opportunity critic.” My writing style recalls a line from a song by Austin-based singer-songwriter Bob Schneider, who said to “write it big and tall — or not at all.”

Our industry is the lifeblood of our nation’s economy. Life as we know it literally would not be possible without the electric utility industry. Industrial, commercial and residential consumers collectively pay billions of dollars to cover the cost of utility investments and state and federal regulators’ decisions – some good, some not so bad and some really bad ones – so these issues are extremely important and worthy of critical analysis and commentary.

I look forward to contributing to RTO Insider and welcome feedback from readers – on or off the record.