New approaches account for the economic benefits of renewables.
Many green power customers benefit from long-term fixed prices. The most effective programs recognize the value of this price hedge—and fairly exempt customers from fuel cost adders in utility rates.
Sweating the details for 2009.
The Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) introduced wholesale market competition in 1996, following the organizational change of ERCOT from a pure reliability council to an independent system operator (ISO) the same year. This makes ERCOT one of the earliest adopters of competitive electric markets. Stakeholders and regulators in ERCOT are trying to work out the details of implementing this market.
Solving the dilemma.
John Seelke
Commission Watch
Solving the dilemma.
The rationale from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) for eliminating through-and-out (T&O) rates while simultaneously imposing a Seams Elimination Charge/Cost Adjustment/Assignment (SECA) is an acknowledgement that FERC is conflicted on a fundamental economic principle: regional transmission organization (RTO) loads use the transmission systems of exporting RTOs; therefore, it is correct for importing customers to compensate exporting RTOs for the use of their transmission syste
With just a few changes in reliability rules, regulators could call on consumer loads to boost power reserves for outages and contingencies.
Eric Hirst and Brendan Kirby
With just a few changes in reliability rules, regulators could call on consumer loads to boost power reserves for outages and contingencies.
In proposing a standard market design (SMD), the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) makes clear that it wants customers to participate in wholesale power markets, such as by bidding an offer to curtail consumption, increase supply, and reduce upward pressure on prices.
"We believe in the direct approach of letting demand bid in the market," says FERC.
Oak Ridge National Laboratory engineers say residential and commercial customers must bear the true price of power, through new technologies, for electric competition to work.
Robert H. Staunton, John D. Kueck,
Brendan J. Kirby, and Joe Eto
Demand Response: An Overview of Enabling Technologies
Changing settlement rules might offer a fix for broken power markets.
Randy Hudson
Edward G. Cazalet, Ph.D., and Ralph D. Samuelson, Ph.D.
Why not use the Web to buy and sell transmission rights at prices derived from bids and offers?
You make an offer, I accept. You deliver a product, I deliver money. This simple construct works well in just about any industry you can name. When a willing buyer and seller negotiate a contract, each achieves an outcome he considers best. Moreover, each is obliged to meet the needs of the other - reliably. No central authority sets the price or allocates supply. We depend on markets for reliable production and delivery of other essential goods; why not for electricity?
Charles W. Thurston
Projects sprout in the United States and overseas, pushing the limits of grid capacity, turbine manufacturers and available sites.
Merchant power plants are emerging en masse to address the growing electricity needs of the United States and other countries, thanks to deregulation and fearless developers. While some plants are built to replace older, less-efficient utility-owned units, others would serve demand growth. Still more are planned as niche-oriented peakers - ready to supply the grid when marginal prices rise high enough. Ancillary services might offer another niche.
Wallace Edward Brand
WHY IS ELECTRICITY COMPETITION NOT WORKING? The principal reason is the failure of Order 888 to accommodate the economic and technological constraints of wholesale power markets.
Soon after Congress passed the Energy Policy Act of 1992, to give authority to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to compel electric utilities under its jurisdiction to wheel power for others, the FERC correctly recognized that piecemeal wheeling orders wouldn't work well without a tariff. A tariff would make the service quickly available to the user without the need for time-consuming negotiation.
Joseph F. Schuler, Jr.
WHAT IS A SCHEDULING COORDINATOR?
At least 33 organizations know the answer to that question in California because by late last year that's how many SCs had filed to act as go-betweens to the independent system operator.
Although the definition varies depending on who's asked, an SC is simply a preschedule and dispatch office. An SC puts a power schedule together for itself or for energy service providers a day ahead or hour ahead.
Pages
