Northwest Energy Review Transition Board	John Etchart, Montana
851 S.W. Sixth Avenue, Suite 1100 Portland, Oregon 97204-1348	Roy Hemmingway, Oregon
Phone 503-222-5161 or 1-800-452-5161 FAX 503-795-3370	Mike Kreidler, Washington
	Todd Maddock, Idaho

Transition Board Transmission Work Group

Meeting 17
January 20, 1998

Al Wright chaired the meeting of the Transmission Work Group at the Northwest Power Planning Council’s offices in Portland. About 20 people attended the meeting.

We discussed the range of positions on a number of aspects of Bonneville potential stranded costs, working from a summary of positions put together by the staff. Paul Murphy proposed adding a question to the summary, to focus on what kind of problem we are attempting to solve. In his mind, the problems span a spectrum from the variability of Bonneville’s cash flow, due to variable weather and short-run market variation, to the costs of a substantial reconfiguration of the power system. Several people in the group thought that it was worth considering matching mechanisms (to address stranded costs) to the circumstances leading to the stranded costs (e.g. increases in Bonneville’s costs vs. a collapse of market prices due to new generating technology).

The staff will revise the summary to include the group’s suggestions. The revised summary will be distributed via e-mail and the Council’s web site and will be the focus of discussion of stranded costs at the Transition Board meeting February 3. Al told the group it should be prepared at that meeting to tell the Transition Board how much agreement it expects to achieve before March.

The group then discussed its earlier examination of regulation of Bonneville by FERC, considering which questions still seemed relevant, and how much agreement we could reach on appropriate answers to the question. Staff will incorporate the discussion in a revised table and distribute it before the next meeting of the work group on February 17.