Commission Watch

Power System Planning:

Who gets paid (and how much) for backing up the system?

Ed Krapels-the electric industry consultant from Boston who helped dream up the initial idea of a monster, undersea direct-current cable (the Neptune project) to bring cheap Canadian power south to the Eastern Seaboard of the United States-thinks he knows now why the merchant transmission business is in the toilet.

Commission Watch

Electric M&A:

The merger with PSE&G may herald a new industry structure, squarely at odds with regional markets.

Call it the merger that broke the bank.

The marriage between Exelon and PSEG, owner of the utility Public Service Electric & Gas (PSE&G), formally proposed in February in papers filed at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), would create the largest electric utility in the United States.