Edison Joins Puerto Rico Venture

Edison International Inc. said its power plant unit agreed to buy a 50% stake in a Puerto Rico plant project from Kenetech Corp. for $245 million. The Edison Mission unit plans to enter a partnership with a unit of Enron Corp. to build a 540-megawatt plant fueled with liquid made from natural gas. The partnership also would build a storage terminal for the fuel and a desalinization plant to service the power plant. Rosemead-based Edison International, California’s second-biggest electric company, is joining the project as part of its plan to expand into new regions as deregulation breaks up its monopoly on California electricity sales. When the plant is completed late next year, the partners will sell all of its electricity, enough to light about 500,000 homes, to the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority. Edison’s shares fell 6 cents to close at $28.31 on the NYSE. Houston-based Enron rose $1.31 to close at $58.69, also on the NYSE. Shares of San Francisco-based Kenetech, a power plant developer, was unchanged at 19 cents in over-the-counter trading.