CPUC

Exelon Generation named Ron DeGregorio president of Exelon Power. Most recently he was chief integration officer working on the Exelon-Constellation merger. Former NSTAR president, chairman and CEO Thomas J. May was elected president and CEO of Northeast Utilities (NU) following the completion of the merger of the two companies. He succeeds Charles W. Shivery, who retired from his position and assumed a new role as the non-executive chairman of the board of NU.

Lewis “Lew” Hay III intends to retire from NextEra Energy at the end of 2013 as part of a planned leadership succession process. Hay will serve as executive chairman from July 1, 2012, until his retirement, and James L. Robo, currently president and CEO of NextEra Energy, will succeed Hay as CEO, effective July 1.

(May 2012) Entergy Louisiana starts construction on gas-fired power project; Virginia Commonwealth University and Dominion partner on a test site for efficient energy technologies; Burlington Electric Department selects Siemens for meter data management platform; IKEA commissions four Blink electric vehicle charging stations; Edison Mission Energy, TIAA-CREF and Cook Inlet Region Inc. form partnership, and others.

Technology is quickly making energy storage more economical and effective than ever before. But companies that wish to invest in storage capacity face a journey through a frustrating regulatory no-man’s land. Opening the gateway for storage to deliver smart grid benefits will require a more streamlined and coherent approach to regulating storage as utility infrastructure.

Many states have implemented decoupled rate regimes to avoid penalizing utilities for conservation efforts. But ensuring appropriate recovery of costs involved with conservation and green energy requires a careful approach. Cost sharing mechanisms balance the interests of utilities and customers — and provide incentives to invest.

For the first time, perhaps, the electric utility industry may need to keep track not only of peak load, but also of minimum load, as the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission reviews a proposal by the Solar Energy Industries Association to employ a new definition of minimum load under a new, relaxed threshold test that would govern eligibility for fast-tracking of applications by generation developers to interconnect new, small-scale solar energy projects to the local utility distribution grid.

The advent of smart grid technology has raised new and challenging issues concerning data privacy. Of course, data privacy isn’t a new concern for the energy industry, as utilities have always collected customer data, some of which is common to any business, such as contact and credit information, and some of which is unique to the energy industry, such as usage and demand data.