[BETA] Fortnightly

Amid focused attention on cybersecurity for T&D networks and power plants, one critical system is often overlooked: land-based radios. During an emergency, field crews rely on their ability to communicate with radios, making these systems highly vulnerable targets for malicious attackers. Securing them requires robust technologies and tools, as well as training and practices to ensure their availability when the grid goes down.

Some in California say they will pay double - once to the ISO, then again to the IOU.

What if power prices fall but the savings get eaten up by higher transmission rates? Let's say we unbundle the wires, but end up creating just another layer of costs? We pay the independent system operator (ISO) to run the grid, but the investor-owned utility (IOU) still owns the wires. It has its own costs to recover. So now we pay two bills, right?

The issue is troublesome for California's electric utilities and a quagmire for Pacific Gas & Electric Co. In a new tariff it filed on Nov.

Power plants can bid on more than one product. That's why most spark-spread studies miss the mark.

Forward energy prices can make it look easy to place a value on a power plant. Yet something is missing. Plants can sell more than one product. One price may be up while another is down. As Einstein said, a theory should be as simple as possible, but no simpler.

That is why it is worth reexamining the methods commonly used to calculate forward price curves and estimate the expected revenues and profits of generating assets.

MICHIGAN CHOICE APPEAL. Michigan Attorney General Frank Kelley filed an appeal in the Michigan Court of Appeals of the Michigan PSC's Jan. 14 rehearing order (News Digest, March 15, 1998, p. 18) adopting a phase-in schedule for electric restructuring and retail choice for Consumers Energy and Detroit Edison. Kelley alleged that the order fails to create a competitive generation market or foster lower rates. He called it an "outrage," that gave the utilities everything they wanted. Case Nos. u-11290 et al., Feb. 13, 1998 (Mich.P.S.C.).

NEW HAMPSHIRE RESTRUCTURING. The U.S.

RETAIL DEREGULATION:

A TRANSFORMING EVENT

Retail sales of gas and electricity run about $300 billion a year. The deregulation of energy production, wholesale logistics, and bulk consumption has brought competition to about 40 to 45 percent of the value chain from wellhead and busbar to the retail meter.