emission

Order 745: A Time Bomb for Electricity Consumers

One of the worst orders FERC has ever produced

Order 745 overcompensates demand response, unduly discriminates against wholesale suppliers, sanctions and institutionally enforces the exercise of monopsony market power, and will ultimately raise electricity prices.

Giving Credit Where Credit is Due

Ensuring State Emission Reduction in Clean Power Plan

Strong public policy favors giving states credit for the carbon reductions they make while the Plan’s legality is pending.

Microgrids and Battery Storage

In search of enlightened policy to build a solid business case.

A smart grid expert searches for a solid business case – and tells how to create enlightened policy to make it happen.

Distributed Generation

Disruptive Technology or Regulatory Challenge?

Distributed generation marks a set of emerging technologies requiring creativity from utilities and regulators in introducing laws, policies, and economic incentives – to ensure that revenue streams are captured and that cost recovery reflects market reality.

CEOs are Charged Up

But guiding their companies in times of change is a challenging task.

It’s a new era for utilities and their consumers. Today’s leaders are atop those economic, political and technological happenings.

Show Them the Money

Customer Connection: How to win over customers on energy efficiency.

New Research into energy efficiency, smart grid technologies and renewables will have utilities and regulators pleasantly surprised.

Finding Common Ground on Energy Efficiency

Policy recommendations for utilities and regulators.

It’s the downright cheapest way of mitigating greenhouse gas emissions. Yet it’s mired from state to state in battles over definitions, principles, and parameters. Herein a collection of recommended policy positions to break the impasse over energy efficiency.

From Coal to Gas

Regulatory and environmental challenges for power plant conversions under the EPA’s Clean Power Plan.

Converting a power plant from coal to natural gas triggers a host of environmental challenges and regulatory issues. Operators could be trading one set of regulatory obligations, liabilities, and costs for another, equally problematic, set of liabilities and costs.

Triggering & Tailoring

What the Supreme Court said, and didn’t.

Justice Scalia saw the need for tailoring as proof that EPA’s Triggering Rule was mistaken.

The Politics of Carbon

Supreme Court may ultimately clarify EPA’s authority under Clean Power Plan.

The Supreme Court questions federal agency authority over greenhouse gas emissions in the recent case of Utility Air Regulatory Group v. EPA.