Re: GridSouth and Southern RTO Orders

I talked to a couple of folks at Southern in the last couple of days to find
out how they are reacting to the FERC Order. Bill Newman ( Sr. VP
Transmission ; leads the RTO work on market structure and transmission
planning) said they were disappointed that FERC did not respond to their
filing as a declaratory filing, but appeared to be trying to force a filing
for approval of a proposed RTO. He said, at this point, they were planning
to restart discussions with all the parties around Southern to explore
whether they could get agreement on a larger RTO, but they had not decided
that combining was necessary. He also said that it might be easier to
combine with GridSouth than Entergy, Florida, etc., but it might not work out
that way. We discussed the response from FERC concerning the treatment of
bundled retail. He was puzzled by the difference in treatment from
GridSouth, since both appear to have the same practical outcome.