Thursday February 15, 7:48 pm Eastern Time ISO head says no injunction means power shortfall By C. Bryson Hull

HOUSTON, Feb 15 (Reuters) - California will be some 3,000 megawatts short of power if a federal judge does not renew an order requiring three suppliers to sell power there in times of emergency, the manager of the state's transmission grid said on Thursday.

California Independent System Operator (ISO) president Terry Winter stopped short of actually saying ``blackout,'' but acknowledged that he would be unable to make generators sell power to the state's debt-ridden and credit-strapped utilities, PG&E Corp.'s (NYSE:PCG - news) Pacific Gas & Electric and Edison International's (NYSE:EIX - news) Southern California Edison.

``If we don't have sufficient bids into the market, then we can't force people on,'' Winter said after speaking at the Cambridge Energy Research Associates conference in Houston. ``Then it's the B-word.''

On Friday, U.S. District Judge Frank Damrell Jr. is scheduled to consider the case which pits California against Reliant Energy Inc (NYSE:REI - news), Dynegy Inc (NYSE:DYN - news) and AES Corp. (NYSE:AES - news).

On Feb.9, he issued a temporary restraining order forcing the three to continue providing power to the grid without any guarantees PG&E and SoCalEdison will ever pay their bills.

The state wants to continue to have the right to force the utilities to sell power to the ISO under emergency conditions.

RECORD 31ST DAY OF ALERT

Emergency has been the rule in California for more than a month, as the state was under its record 31st straight Stage 3 power alert on Thursday.

The ISO derives its ability to force generators to sell from previously negotiated contracts, Winter said.

``If the judge doesn't grant a preliminary injunction, then I have no way to enforce that provision,'' Winter said.

Reliant spokesman Richard Wheatley declined to say whether his company would stop providing power if the judge lifts his current order.

``We don't know what the judge is going to do, and we can't speculate on what we're going to do,'' Wheatley said.

Damrell's order came right after the expiration of a Bush administration directive requiring power suppliers to keep selling to California despite money worries. http://biz.yahoo.com/rf/010215/n15624660.html

-- Tess (webwoman@iamit.com), February 15, 2001