Four US energy companies have formed an alliance that will see an independent business to business exchange formed that will trade transmission capacity on the internet.
Carolina Power & Light, Duke Energy, the recently merged American Electric Power (AEP) and Unicon Corporation have created the exchange that will offers a single portal to arrange transmission. The exchange will be open to power marketers, traders, utilities and so on, but also independent system operators and regional transmission operators (ISOs & RTOs). Collectively, the four operate more than 60 000 miles (96 000 km) of transmission lines and transport some 100 TWh of power annually. The purpose of the exchange is to simplify transmission transactions, which currently occur across more than 170 Open Access Same Time Information System (Oasis) bulletin boards. Unlike the Oasis system, that may require multiple transactions to make a single transimission, the new internet platform will consolidate these deals. Furthermore, exchange customers could trade unused transmission capacity when available. A company to operate the exchange is expected to be formed before the exchange itself is operational before the year end.
