81.   The futures contracts are designed to help power producers, marketers and consumers to guard against -- or speculate on --those swings.

82.   The market failed to distinguish between power producers and so-called energy merchants such as Dynegy, said Carol Coale, an analyst with Prudential Securities in Houston.

83.   The measure would help end the credit problem for utilities, which has made power producers wary of selling to them.

84.   The move comes just two years after the first independent power producer began selling electricity.

85.   The partnership appears to have paid off for CalEnergy, once just a producer of geothermal power producer in California.

86.   The position of Southern Co., the Atlanta, Georgia-based power producer, is not a matter of contention, said Economics Ministry spokeswoman Stephanie Kage.

87.   The new order applies to energy trading companies, which unlike power producers were not subject to previous price caps.

88.   The pressure for the changes has come from independent power producers, which have rapidly grown and have many plants that produce cheap surplus power.

89.   The regulations have already cut what power companies can charge for their power and will eventually open up the Spanish market to foreign power producers and distributors.

90.   The pressure is coming primarily from industrial customers, independent power producers and utilities with low-cost production.