Nrg Energy Inc

Private-equity firm Blackstone Group struck a deal Friday to buy power producer Dynegy Inc. for $543 million in cash and sell Dynegy plants in California and Maine to NRG Energy Inc. in the latest shake-up in the electricity industry. The deal values Dynegy at $4.7 billion including debt, which would make it one of the biggest buyouts of a power company since Kohlberg Kravis Roberts, TPG Capital and Goldman Sachs Group Inc. bought power company TXU Corp. for $32 billion in 2007.

Edison Mission Energy, the power plant development arm of cash-strapped Edison International Inc., sold $600 million worth of debt securities Monday, overcoming substantial concerns about its exposure to the troubled California utility market. Investors viewed Edison Mission, based in Irvine, as sufficiently removed from the fray to buy the notes, which mature in 10 years. But the company paid for the funding: The yield is 9.88%.

SACRAMENTO — A Bay Area clean technology firm is suing state energy regulators, accusing them of granting an out-of-state power company a monopoly over EV charging stations in California. Ecotality, a San Francisco maker of electric charging stations, filed a lawsuit Friday in the California Court of Appeal, Second District, which hears appeals of decisions by the California Public Utilities Commission and other quasi-judicial agencies. The suit alleges that the PUC made an illegal agreement with NRG Energy Inc. of Princeton, N.J., that gives that company 18 months of exclusive rights to operate charging stations in certain locations.

Electric vehicles, many of which will hit dealership showrooms starting next month, took center stage at this week's Los Angeles Auto Show. But while wooed by the futuristic designs and promises of huge fuel savings, many tire-kickers at the show raised worries about how they would keep the cars powered up and running. So amid a flurry of announcements about ever more clean-fuel models coming to market, industry officials kept busy touting how there was a growing network of public and private charging stations available for electric vehicle operators.

In a big boost to current and prospective electric car owners, most of a $120-million settlement with an energy company will be used to build a vast network of charging stations in California. The money will be used to construct at least 200 public fast-charging stations and install wiring for 10,000 plug-in units at 1,000 locations across the state, Gov. Jerry Brown said Friday. He also announced that he had signed an executive order laying out the foundation for 1.5 million zero-emission vehicles to be on California's roads by 2025.

After a years-long struggle to stay afloat despite a suffocating debt load, power producer Calpine Corp. filed for bankruptcy protection late Tuesday. The San Jose company, which operates 41 plants in California, made the filing in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in New York after it lost a court battle with bondholders that called for Calpine to repay $313 million by Jan. 22.

Riding the boom in power trading, almost 8% of business school graduates at Rice University last year took jobs with Enron Corp., lured by first-year compensation of more than $100,000. Just a few months later, the graduates of the Houston-based school were out of work and the luster of the once-highflying industry, still reeling from Enron's collapse into Chapter 11 proceedings late last year, was tarnished.

On the vast expanse of asphalt outside Dodger Stadium, Nissan Motor Co.'s new electric car made its U.S. debut Friday, zipping quietly through a maze of orange cones on its way to what the Japanese automaker hopes will be the top of the clean transportation class. The Nissan Leaf, a five-seat, zero-emission hatchback, will start filtering into select markets in the U.S., Europe and Japan next year and will go global in 2012 at a price just 1% to 2% higher than similar-size vehicles, the carmaker said.

Electricity producers' plans to curtail expansion, aimed at reassuring investors rattled by Enron Corp.'s collapse, are raising concerns that the U.S. may face power shortages in the next few years. Mirant Corp., NRG Energy Inc. and some rival generators shelved or postponed billions of dollars in projects this month to bolster their credit ratings after downgrades helped push Enron into Chapter 11 bankruptcy. A decline in electricity prices has further reduced the incentive to build plants.