By Scott DiSavino

(Reuters) – Privately held Deepwater Wind expects to win a federal lease to build a wind farm of up to 1,000 megawatts (MW) in federal waters south of Rhode Island and Massachusetts, the company’s chief executive said in an interview.

The Department of Interior’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) will hold the competitive lease sale for renewable energy on July 31.

June 10 (Reuters) – Duke Energy Corp’s 618-megawatt
(MW) Edwardsport coal-fired power plant in Indiana has entered
service, the power company said on Monday.

Edwardsport cost about $3.5 billion, including financing.
Duke, the biggest U.S. power company, said it will be able to
recover about $2.6 billion of that cost from its 790,000 Indiana
ratepayers.

NEW YORK (Reuters) – California’s growing reliance on natural gas to fuel its power plants will increase and power prices will remain elevated following Southern California Edison’s decision to retire a crippled nuclear power plant.

Both reactors at the 2,150-megawatt (MW) San Onofre plant will be permanently closed due to uncertainty over the cost and timing of restarting one of the units, said SCE, a unit of California energy company Edison International, on Friday.

NEW YORK (Reuters) – California’s growing reliance on natural gas to fuel its power plants will increase and power prices will remain elevated following Southern California Edison’s decision to retire a crippled nuclear power plant.

Both reactors at the 2,150-megawatt (MW) San Onofre plant will be permanently closed due to uncertainty over the cost and timing of restarting one of the units, said SCE, a unit of California energy company Edison International, on Friday.

WASHINGTON/NEW YORK, May 31 (Reuters) – Even before the
chief U.S. power market regulator announced his resignation this
week, the agency pursuing a contested probe against JPMorgan
Chase & Co for alleged market manipulation had good
reason to take its time building the case.

The bank, already embroiled in a public legal battle with
the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) over disclosing
certain emails, alerted investors earlier this month that it
expected FERC to move against the bank for trading activities in
electricity markets. That followed the leak of FERC’s initial
findings, raising expectations of near-term action.

May 10 (Reuters) – Edison Mission Energy, a unit of
California power company Edison International, said
Friday its new 479-megawatt (MW) Walnut Creek natural gas-fired
power plant in Southern California is expected to enter
commercial service in June.

The plant is expected to add much needed electric capacity
to the state’s power grid, which is preparing for a second
summer in a row without the two reactors at the giant San Onofre
nuclear power plant.

May 10 (Reuters) – JPMorgan Chase & Co has sold the
rights to market electricity from three power plants in Southern
California to a regional power company, reducing the bank’s
presence in the state as it comes under regulatory scrutiny.

Federal energy regulators may take enforcement action
against JPMorgan over allegations that it manipulated power
prices in California and Michigan, which the bank denies and
vows to fight.

May 7 (Reuters) – U.S. power company FirstEnergy Corp
said on Tuesday it hired an adviser and started implementing its
plan to sell up to 1,240 megawatts of unregulated non-core hydro
generation assets.

The company did not identify the hydro plants to be sold but
wants to complete the sale in the second half of the year,
FirstEnergy CEO Anthony Alexander said on the company’s first-
quarter earnings call.

May 7 (Reuters) – U.S. power company Dominion Resources Inc
shut the 566-megawatt (MW) Kewaunee nuclear power plant in
Wisconsin on Tuesday, as planned.

“We planned to shut at about noon today but are running a
little ahead of schedule. We closed the breaker a little bit
ago,” Dominion spokesman Mark Kranz told Reuters before noon.

By Scott DiSavino

(Reuters) – The regulator of U.S. power markets appears likely to pursue manipulation charges against JPMorgan Chase & Co (JPM.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz), analysts said, after a New York Times report on the agency’s document that seemed to lay out its case.

The Times said on Friday it reviewed a confidential, 70-page government document that the U.S. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) sent to JPMorgan in March, which alleged the bank manipulated the power market in California and Michigan in 2010 and 2011.