Commission Watch
Price controls turn upside-down in New England.
Fortnightly Magazine - July 15 2003
Business & Money
A new survey produces some surprising responses about investor attitudes.
Byline:
Greg Aliff and Branko Terzic
Technology Corridor
Vegetation that helps break down toxins debuts at manufactured gas plant site.
Vegetation that helps break down toxins debuts at manufactured gas plant site.
Planting swaths of rye grass and mulberry trees and sowing the soil with bacteria are hardly standard operating procedure when it comes to cleaning up manufactured gas plant sites. But if Bill Bogan has his way, it just might be.
Byline:
Jennifer Alvey
Off Peak
Where ex utility CEOs lurk and spill their guts.
Byline:
Adipocere1066, 06/18/03, 01:46 a.m.:
The Coming Transmission Credit Crisis
How can transmission providers safely serve noncreditworthy customers?
Byline:
J. Michel Marcoux and Thomas L. Blackburn
Gas Pipelines Do the Safety Dance
The industry responds to FERC's new safety regulations.
The industry responds to FERC's new safety regulations.
Utility companies are scrambling to understand and comply with the Pipeline Safety Improvement Act of 2002, which became law in December 2002. According to Daphne Magnuson, director of public relations at the American Gas Association (AGA), the act will require member companies to make significant changes during the next 10 years in how they operate.
Byline:
Lori A. Burkhart
Taking the Weather Option
Weather-contingent options are cheaper than other weather risk products and can be crafted to suit emissions allowance markets.
Weather-contingent options are cheaper than other weather risk products and can be crafted to suit emissions allowance markets.
Weather is a pivotal demand factor in energy consumption, but one that is difficult to predict and impossible to control. With weather-hedging tools available in the over-the-counter (OTC) markets for several years, the market has grown to $4.2 billion, with approximately 4,000 contracts traded in 2001, according to Pricewaterhouse-Coopers.
Byline:
Nicholas Ernst
Weather Derivatives: Answering The Devil's Advocate
We prefer a more conservative approach. Hedging with weather derivatives is too unorthodox for our company.
Common objections to weather hedging products include:
Byline:
Mark Gibbas
Watching the Watchers
Can RTO market monitors really be independent?
Can RTO market monitors really be independent?
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) initiatives on regional transmission organizations (RTOs) and standard market design give new prominence to the market monitoring institution (MMI), a novel regulatory tool never before contemplated in legislation.1
Byline:
Robert J. Michaels
Frontlines
The ISO graples with the politics of scarity.
The ISO graples with the politics of scarity.
In regions that have embraced electric industry restructuring, such as New York, New England, and the mid-Atlantic states, where independent system operators (ISOs) have taken over and the standard market design (SMD) has grabbed a foothold over bulk power transactions, one fascinating question still dogs theorists and policymakers alike:
Is a power supply shortage really all that bad?
Byline:
Bruce W. Radford