(January 2013) Entergy acquires Kgen gas-fired plants in Arkansas and Mississippi; TransCanada buys BP share of Alberta gas storage facility; PSE acquires Tenaska plant; AEP issues $850 million in debt; Duke units float $650 million in bonds; plus debt issues by NextEra, Southern Company, Entergy, and others totaling nearly $3.2 billion.

(August 2011) Shaw Group completes 500 MW combined cycle plant; Pattern Energy begins building Spring Valley wind farm; AEP, Duke and TVA team up on interstate transmission line; AEP and MidAmerican contract for Texas transmission projects; Alliant contracts Open Systems International for volt-VAR control system; Alstom buys into AWS Ocean Energy; Siemens acquires shares in PV manufacturer Semprius; Lockheed Martin introduces cyber security system; plus contracts and announcements involving Elster, Itron, Suzlon, Solon, Sensus, Westinghouse Electric, Morgan Lewis and others.

A wave of coal-fired plant retirements presages a possible crisis in the New England market. As load-serving utilities in ISO New England become increasingly dependent on natural gas-fired capacity and large-scale renewable generators, the region might be forced to rely on expensive cost-of-service reliability contracts to keep the lights on. Stakeholders are considering alternative approaches to encouraging power plant development, including special rate incentives previously reserved for transmission projects. Paul J. Hibbard, former Massachusetts DPU chairman and now vice president with the Analysis Group, analyzes how resource constraints are blurring the lines between competitive markets and integrated resource planning in New England.

While oil and gas prices now are falling after the latest experience with fuel-price volatility, the Global Energy Decision fuels team is focused on modeling an integrated world-wide system of fuel relationships encompassing crude oil, natural gas, coal, and increasingly, synfuels to help our clients assess the implications of fuel-price swings on their businesses. Let’s look at the potential impacts and implications of this growing reliance on liquefied natural gas for North America’s power-generation demand.

Few people understand how to ride shifting winds better than Jim Dehlsen does. Dehlsen founded Zond Energy Systems 25 years ago, and steered the company through a series of major changes and challenges—the oil-price collapse of the 1980s; ambivalent energy policies, with on-again, off-again production tax credits; and the sale of controlling interests in Zond to Enron in the late 1990s. Should it come as any surprise, then, that Dehlsen still is bullish on windpower’s prospects?

Commission Watch

Alaskan Gas Development

FERC may have to carve out a special set of rules if it wants to bring Arctic gas south to the lower-48.

When President Bush signed the Alaska Natural Gas Pipeline Act of 2004, forcing the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) for the first time to set formal rules to cover capacity solicitations and subscriptions for a new pipeline, one might have thought that North Slope gas was on the fast track.

Neptune and the Northeast

 

News Digest