IT

The Perils of Ignoring Mother Nature

Experts say utilities' inconsistent approach to weather risk is costing them dearly.

Since their creation, energy companies have been powerless to defend themselves against the weather’s financial impact on business. No longer. An overview of what weather risk management has achieved.
Byline: 

Jennifer Alvey

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Three-Legged Stool

The smart money now treats transmission as a player. Just like generation. Just like load.

Over at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, new chairman Pat Wood has let it be known if he had been in charge, he would have postponed Order 2000.
Byline: 

Bruce W. Radford

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Moving Gas to Generate Power: An Encore for Hrehor/Sytsma

While responsive to the operational requirements of the particular systems, several new pipeline services enable generators to react more promptly to spiking electric demand.

Putting flesh on the gas-power vision, pipeline efforts to formulate services for generators, and FERC orders governing those efforts now assume a discernible shape. This is a reasonable time to take stock.
Byline: 

Michel Marcoux

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Utility Valuation: Shedding Light on the Black Box

Experts debate how energy companies should be valued in the wake of electric restructuring and Enron.

Credit downgrades, bankruptcy, and investor backlash against energy companies has exposed how inadequate the valuation of energy companies is. Experts debate just how to value the industry.
Byline: 

Richard Stavros

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The Economists: On the Future of Energy Markets

Uncertainty clouds direction of FERC’s market engineering.

The failure of California markets, Enron, and the low-point of the merchant plant business cycle has left many executives pessimistic over the prospects that true competitive markets in energy will develop. Top economists discuss the industry’s outlook.
Byline: 

Mark Hand

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Let's Be Rational About Hydrogen as a Vehicular Fuel

A response to “Forgetting Someone, Mr. Secretary?” Frontlines, Feb 1, 2002.

Mr. Stavros seems to fall into the same trap as so many of the major car manufacturers in assuming the need for a prohibitively costly infrastructure to supply this hydrogen when one already exists that offers by far the cheapest and environmentally vastly superior option—the natural gas transmission and distribution system.
Byline: 

Henry R. Linden

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The V2G Concept: A New Model for Power?

Connecting utility infrastructure and automobiles.

Blurring the line between transportation and utility infrastructure, new fuel cell and electric vehicles being proposed could be a new power source for electric utilities.
Byline: 

Steven E. Letendre, Ph.D., and Willett Kempton, Ph.D.

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