(June 2011) Dynegy appoints interim president and CEO; Navigant adds new energy practice director; plus senior staff changes at Emera, ConEdison, Energyplus Holdings, and others.

The District of Columbia Public Service Commission successfully has used two little known provisions in the Federal Power Act (FPA) to prevent an aging generating plant crucial to the national capital region’s reliability from being abruptly shut down by Virginia’s environmental regulators. In the end, the immediate threat to the region’s reliability was obviated while the environmental concerns associated with the plant were not ignored. The action resulted in a model for how federal energy regulators and environmental regulators can address similar problems in the future.

New Opportunities: Southern Nuclear Operating Co. announced that its board of directors elected Joseph (Buzz) Miller as senior vice president of nuclear development. Miller is currently the vice president of government relations for Southern Co.

Except for local reinforcements and new generation interconnections, few transmission construction proposals are moving forward.

There's plenty of talk about transmission, says Theo Mullen. "But real action on transmission construction is scant," he adds. "Conferences and reports abound. Projects of all sizes are being proposed. But, except for local reinforcements and new generation interconnections, few transmission construction proposals are moving forward. The vast majority of larger projects are stalled for lack of financial commitment."¹

People

New Positions:

Duke Energy Corp. appointed Paul Anderson as its chairman and CEO, succeeding Rick Priory, who will retire early next year. Anderson briefly worked for Duke after it merged with PanEnergy in 1997. He retired last year as managing director and CEO of BHP Billiton Ltd. in Australia.

Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham named Rosita O. Parkes chief information officer (CIO) at the Department of Energy. Parkes has served as CIO and deputy CIO at the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

People

New Positions:

The Nuclear Energy Institute elected Stephen R. Tritch and Mark F. McGettrick to its board of directors. Tritch is Westinghouse Electric Co. president and CEO, and McGettrick is president and CEO of generation at Dominion Energy.

Paul B. Vasington, former chairman of the Massachusetts Department of Telecommunications and Energy, joined the Analysis Group as vice president, based in the company's Boston office.

How to mitigate transmission risk before the next big blackout.

By now there has been much industry analysis and finger-pointing over what happened on Aug. 14. Will we get a definitive answer to why the lights went out in the Northeast, Midwest, and Canada? Even after we've identified all the causal factors, the most important question to be asking ourselves as an industry is, Why?

We ask merchant grid developers if anything can ever be done.

 

The blackout of August 2003 should have come as no surprise. The Department of Energy's May 2002 National Transmission Grid Study finds growing evidence that the U.S. transmission system is in urgent need of modernization.

Technology exists to sequester carbon-but will utilities ever buy in?

The vision: A nation filled with new, coal-fired power plants that provide inexpensive, secure power for Americans, while emitting few pollutants and sequestering the carbon dioxide produced. In other words, a power plant that not only industry and environmentalists can agree on, but one that utilities can finance and operate profitably.