Mississippi Prepares for Deregulation with Over 11,000MW of New Generation Capacity

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The following is an advisory by Industrialinfo.com (Industrial Information Resources, Inc.; Houston, Texas). Private Energy Producers (PEP's) and Investor Owned Utilities (IOU's) in Mississippi are attempting to prepare for deregulation by planning, permitting, and constructing over 11,000 mega-watts (MW) of new electric generation capacity. There are over eighty new units that have either been announced or started construction in Mississippi.

Most are either natural gas or natural gas/oil-fired and are combined-cycle (combustion turbine/generators with heat recovery steam generators and steam turbine/generators) or simple-cycle (combustion turbine/generators) setups that produce 100MW to 500MW per unit. There are some smaller projects (hydroelectric, landfill gas, and fuel cell) that range from 2MW to 80MW each.

These plants and units will be adding power to the grid between now and the spring of 2005. Industrialinfo.com is currently tracking over 24 sites where generation is being added at a total estimated investment cost of $5.5 billion.

Mississippi started legislation and investigations into deregulation for a competitive wholesale market and a competitive market in 1997. The goal was to start phasing in deregulation in 2001 and to have a completely deregulated market by the end of 2004.