Innovation Mandate
Meeting the just-and-reasonable standard in a time of change.
Who can say for sure if markets are working? The landscape keeps shifting.
Fortnightly Magazine - December 2013
Energy Efficiency Unknowns
Making efficiency programs work requires understanding real-world behavior.
Efficiency programs often fall short because they don’t account for human behavior. Systematic studies with randomized trials can bring better results.
People (December 2013)
CenterPoint and Oglethorpe name new CEOs; CMS elevates legal executives; SEPA elects new board members; John Rowe joins board of American DG Energy; plus management changes and announcements at NextEra, Seattle City Light, WAPA, SCANA, and others.
Transactions (December 2013)
NRG and Sempra acquire Edison Mission assets; Google invests in AES-Riverstone venture; TransAlta acquires NextEra wind farm; plus debt issues from TransCanada, NiSource, Duke, and Southwest Gas totaling $2.4 billion.
Turning Toward Customers
Utility transformation guided by improved customer insight.
Improved customer insight can help utilities transform their business models, to strengthen engagement with consumers and remain competitive as the energy sector evolves.
Dodd-Frank and Electric Utilities
Understanding the new mosaic of commodities trading regulations.
Compliance with Dodd-Frank might not be as complicated as feared; however, companies must be vigilant in order to maintain the relevant exemptions.
Tranche Warfare
The experts do battle over capacity market design.
A FERC conference this fall aired new major policy options for capacity markets. Amid the battle, ISOs are making tactical adjustments.
Partnership, Not Preemption
How state-sponsored planning can fit with FERC’s capacity markets.
FERC-approved capacity markets and state-sponsored resource planning serve different needs. The one shouldn’t pre-empt the other.
Category Error
The trouble with treating grid projects as market players in New York’s capacity auction.
Transmission is not generation. Yet New York ISO makes grid projects qualify as competitive, like gen plants, to get to play in its capacity market.
Mobile Mindset
Meeting customers’ service expectations in the smart phone era.
Mobile data services play a vital role for utilities to better engage customers and provide vital information during outage situations.