Fortnightly Magazine - March 2005

Perspective

Renewable Energy in the 21st Century:

Perspective

Renewable Energy in the 21st Century:

State involvement in promoting renewable technologies has profound implications for the future of the energy industry.

Election-year posturing seems to have prevented the federal government from reaching consensus on a number of energy issues ranging from standard market design to global warming, MBTE to Kyoto, ANWR to nuclear waste disposal.

Commission Watch

What everybody missed in setting up the regional grids.

Commission Watch

What everybody missed in setting up the regional grids.

While the electric utility industry has largely agreed on what elements to include in a standard market design (SMD) to govern wholesale power trading in a given region, recent experience shows that the regulators from time to time have overlooked a number of things.

Business & Money

Sticking to the Knitting:

Business & Money

Sticking to the Knitting:

A review of three years of post-Enron stock performance by electric utilities.

Immediately following the Enron collapse, investors dumped the stock of any electric power company that appeared to be pursuing non-traditional growth strategies. Any company that emphasized unregulated businesses-investments in overseas assets, merchant power plant development, and energy marketing and trading-was suspect.

Technology Corridor

Mobile workers provide the next opportunity for utility productivity gains.

Technology Corridor

Mobile workers provide the next opportunity for utility productivity gains.

Field workers at many electric, gas, and water utilities have not realized the benefits of their company's substantial investments in office-based information technology (IT) systems for work and asset management, customer service and billing, geographic information systems, mobile technologies, or even e-mail.

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