What does CPE stand for?

Under the MD02 plan, the "day-ahead market," which disappeared when the California Power Exchange shut down in January 2001, would make a return appearance, Fishman said.

Although an audit showed that profits on sales to the California Power Exchange were 56 percent, it also showed that sales to other state agencies and utilities sometimes showed a loss and resulted in an overall profit margin of 16 percent during the one-year period that ended in May.

We have not gouged the state' Municipal utilities said numbers put out by the state are misleading, because they don't take into account higher costs faced by municipal utilities and the hundreds of millions of dollars they themselves are owed by the now-defunct California Power Exchange and the insolvent investor-owned Southern California Edison and Pacific Gas & Electric utilities.

The Department of Water Resources, previously in charge solely of water, was cast in the role of power purchaser after the Pasadena-based California Power Exchange disbanded earlier this year.

FERC did, however, free utilities from the requirement to sell power only through the California Power Exchange, an auction house set up for the state's three major utilities by a 1996 deregulation law.

Workers at the agencies - the California Power Exchange and the California Independent System Operator - say they are rushing to get their respective computer and communications systems on line.

Walper has played a significant role in many of the country's largest recent chapter 11 cases and restructurings, including Refco, Calpine, Pacific Gas & Electric, Southern California Edison, Kmart, United Airlines, Southern Pacific Funding, California Power Exchange and Coho Energy.

The California Power Exchange, the marketplace where electricity was bought and sold in the state under regulation, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.