Round-trip electricity transactions could account for $30 billion per year of inflated revenue among the top 10 power traders, according to Mark Williams, a visiting scholar at Boston University and former senior v.p. of Citizens Power. Williams' calculation is based on admissions that many of the top power traders in the U.S., including Dynegy, Reliant Resources, Duke Energy and CMS Energy, engaged in the bogus trades. Total electricity sales in the U.S. accounted for some MWh6.7 billion last year.
May 22, 2002