Fortnightly Magazine - March 1 2002

The Ten Commandments of Demand Trading

Demand trading is a critical element in the success of open, competitive, retail energy markets, but there are certain rules that should be followed.

The advent of deregulated wholesale electricity markets and the penetration of market forces into retail electricity markets have enormously enlarged the set of opportunities for lucrative financial gains. One of these opportunities is demand trading, which represents a key tool that can advance one of deregulation's principal goals-customer choice.

Byline: 

Dr. William M. Smith, Joel Gilbert, and Paul Meagher

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The Crystal Ball: Forecasting for Demand Trading

As demand trading operations expand, accurate short‑term load forecasts will become crucial to marketplace success.

As market forces increasingly enter electricity markets, demand trading has become more prevalent over the last few years in the United States. The differences between high wholesale market prices for electricity and prices paid by retail customers have created significant economic opportunities. The immediate beneficiaries include sellers of electricity with access to the wholesale market and large electricity customers with a desire-and the ability-to reduce demand.

Byline: 

Dr. William M. Smith and Ken Seiden

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The SAGA of Yucca Mountain

Is an NRC license application around the corner?

Less than a year after the Bush administration offered the nuclear industry several words of encouragement in its national energy policy plan, the industry won a second opportunity to smile when Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham in January formally embraced Nevada's Yucca Mountain, about 80 miles from Las Vegas, as the underground repository for thousands of tons of high‑level nuclear waste from across the country.

Byline: 

Mark Hand

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Olympics Index

Utilities and the Games.

10,000-Number of cubic feet of gas consumed each hour by the Olympic flame cauldron at the University of Utah's Rice‑Eccles Stadium during the 2002 Salt Lake City winter Olympic games. -Source: Questar Gas

77 million-Number of cubic feet of gas consumed by fleet of natural gas vehicles used during the 1996 Atlanta summer Olympics. American Gas Association Clean Air Team member companies donated the gas and a portion of the fleet of vehicles to the Atlanta games. -Source: American Gas Association

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