[BETA] Fortnightly

Regulators across the country are relying on conservation-potential assessments to guide their policy decisions. Models based on macroeconomic analysis, end-use forecasting and accounting measurements provide different ways to assess the achievability of conservation and efficiency goals.

Back in June, the Bismarck Tribune ran an interview with North Dakota Public Service Commissioner Tony Clark that showed just how difficult it is to build national consensus for renewable energy.

Plug-in hybrid vehicles (PHEVs) open a new intersection between wind power and transportation.

‘Capture readiness’ hasn’t helped coal projects move forward, but a firm commitment might make the difference.

Utility CEOs debate the merits of a retail surcharge to fund clean-tech R&D.

When a federal court ordered the DOE to develop more than 20 energy-efficiency rules, the first rule DOE created was a commercial rule for energy transformer distribution equipment. The new DOE rule, published at the end of last year, is the first increased efficiency standard created since the beginning of the Bush administration in 2001.

The industry is struggling to reconcile legacy business models with emerging green priorities. CEOs at Green Mountain Power, Progress Energy, IDACORP, Pepco Holdings, and Reliant Energy explain their perspectives on financing investments in conservation and efficiency.

Hold on to your hats. The vaunted and vilified “standard market design”, once thought dead and buried, has been resuscitated, with all attendant chaos and rhetoric, but this time in the guise of a new proposal under the code name “open dispatch.” This new construct, as remarkable in its way as Einstein’s theory of indeterminate space and time, declares that electric transmission, long seen as one of a triumvirate of unique and essential utility industry sectors (along with generation and distribution), is little more than a mirage.

Why doesn’t its interpretation of the Clean Air Act consider the most low-emission coal plant technologies?

LDCs:

The consequences of short-sighted rate making.