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SACRAMENTO — Power-strapped California’s reprieve from the threat of blackouts proved brief Thursday as state regulators scoured the West for megawatts and looked to federal officials for more help. 

At one point the energy officials said they were 1,000 megawatts away from declaring a Stage 3 alert that could trigger rolling blackouts. One megawatt is enough electricity for 1,000 homes. 

But after a scramble to find more suppliers, the Independent System Operator, keeper of the state’s power grid, predicted at midafternoon that blackouts would be narrowly avoided for the second straight day. 

“We expect to skate by at the peak with just under 5 percent operating reserves,” said Kellan Fluckiger, the ISO’s chief operating officer. 

Meanwhile, U.S. Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., and state Senate leader John Burton, D-San Francisco, asked U.S. Attorney Janet Reno to investigate whether power generators were conspiring to boost electricity prices and “gouge consumers.” 

The state’s scramble for power, again blamed on tight supplies and high costs, came a day before federal regulators were to provide a much-anticipated plan for scaling back skyrocketing wholesale electricity prices. 

On Wednesday, ISO officials credited intervention by Energy Secretary Bill Richardson with fending off outages. Richardson said he would order investor-owned wholesalers to sell power to California at a price he considered fair. 

Richardson also asked two large power generating associations in the Pacific Northwest to send more electricity to California. 

Gov. Gray Davis and Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., praised Richardson’s move, but awaited more help from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, which is expected to issue an order Friday. Davis and Feinstein want the commission to impose a regional price cap to prevent generators from gouging customers. Washington state Gov. Gary Locke urges similar action. 

Davis and Feinstein also propose long-term contracts between power generators and suppliers at “reasonable prices” to smooth price spikes during hot or cold weather. 

Consumer advocates favor long-term contracts and a Western price cap. The cap would be set at the cost of generating power, plus a reasonable profit. 

“We need to see hard price caps,” said Michael Shames, executive director of Utility Consumers’ Action Network in San Diego, a nonprofit watchdog with 38,000 members. 

Electricity generators argue such a cap would discourage construction of new power plants because companies look to increase their profits by building more efficient plants. 

“If you give people the economic incentive, they will do a better job,” said Steven Greenwald, a San Francisco lawyer who represents power suppliers. 

FERC Chairman James Hoecker has said only that the commission will take strong action. 

“We believe in competitive markets,” Hoecker said Wednesday. “We believe we can make them work, but they have to work responsibly and they have to produce reasonable prices.” 

Spokeswoman Tamara Young-Allen said commission members would not comment further until they issue their order. 

FERC issued a preliminary plan last month that included a “soft cap.” Companies offering to sell power at more than $150 per megawatt hour would have to file paperwork with FERC defending the higher price. 

FERC officials also proposed requiring utility suppliers to buy 95 percent of their electricity from generators more than a day in advance, to blunt high costs. FERC would impose a fee of $100 per megawatt hour if a utility disobeyed. 

ISO officials said financial problems faced by two of California’s biggest utilities, Southern California Edison and Pacific & Electric Co., have hampered efforts to buy power from some suppliers. 

Those companies or municipal utitities wanted more guarantees — such as letters of credit — that they would be paid, Fluckiger said. 

Southern California Edison and PG&E say they’ve been caught between a retail rate freeze imposed as part of the state’s transition to a deregulated market and soaring wholesale prices. 

The two say they have spent $8 billion more than they have collected from their retail customers. 

PG&E and Edison so far have deferred those costs on their books, enabling their parent companies to continue to report robust profits to Wall Street. But investors are zeroing in on a Dec. 21 meeting of the California Public Utilities Commission for signs regulators will let PG&E and Edison raise their rates, said industry analyst Steven Fleishman of Merrill Lynch in New York. 

“People are going to be very disappointed if the commission doesn’t take some kind of action,” Fleishman said. “I wouldn’t be surprised if there is some sort of rate increase in place by Jan. 1.” 

Energy Secretary Richardson wants FERC officials to meet with investor-owned utilities, generators, marketers and state regulators to try and solve California’s problems. 

The state’s power market has been roiled since summer by tight supplies and price spikes. Deregulation, cold temperatures and rising wholesale power costs, including natural gas prices, have been blamed for the most recent problems. 

Fluckiger said the state faces a long-term supply problem, driven in part by the rapid growth of Silicon Valley, that only more generating facilities or a drop in demand can solve. 

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On the Net: 

Independent System Operator: http://www.caiso.com/ 

Federal Energy Regulatory Commission: http://www.ferc.fed.us/