SPP

Harbinger or Anomaly?

As it becomes more routine for developers to offer cost containment commitments, it will become increasingly difficult for RTOs to ignore the cost impact of proposals.

Are recent transmission developer selections based on cost containment a harbinger of the future or just an anomaly?

The Rise and Fall of Big Transmission

The alternatives may make more sense.

After 10 years of dramatic announcements and proposals, the reality today is that Big Transmission has fallen and it won't be getting up - not even for the Clean Power Plan. And the fall of Big Transmission is not a public policy failure. Rather, it never did make sense.

EPA's Clean Power Plan

Charting a Path Forward

With respect to the Clean Power Plan, the question is whether EPA will address the major issues and reinforce its positions in advance of the anticipated legal challenges.

Public Power Road Show

Sue Kelly’s ‘world tour’ brings APPA home.

There’s no one in the energy industry – and I mean absolutely no one – who is more on-message than Sue Kelly, now winding up her first year as CEO of the American Public Power Association.

Wired Together

For DATC, grid expansion is a team effort.

An interview with key executives of Duke-American Transmission Co.: Phillip Grigsby, president, and Randy Satterfield, executive vice president. Both also sit on DATC's Board of Managers.

Her Next Hurdle

ITC’s Linda Blair on where to build tomorrow’s grid.

Linda Blair, executive v.p. and chief business officer for grid giant ITC, discusses how ITC plans to navigate the new transmission landscape and where ITC might turn for its next major transmission project.

Unwinding the Death Spiral

Rooftop solar, net metering, and the perils of utilityspeak.

The Sierra Club accuses utilities of trying to snuff out rooftop solar. Attorney Donald Sipe recommends RTO/ISO markets for natural gas.

Sound and Fury

How NIPSCO feels leaned on.

Northern Indiana Public Service, the MISO member sandwiched between PJM’s Ohio territory and its noncontiguous Chicago outpost, feels particularly aggrieved by the failure of the MISO-PJM Joint Operating Agreement, approved by FERC in 2004, to facilitate cross-border grid projects to relieve constraints along the ragged and interlaced seam that separates the two regions.

Cross-Border Bargaining

Interregional grid planning under FERC Order 1000.

Territorial fights emerge in the interregional transmission plans proposed for compliance with FERC Order 1000.

Digest

Abengoa and BrightSource Energy agreed to jointly develop, build, and operate what the companies say will be the world’s two largest solar power towers. GE began operating a prototype of what it calls the world’s most efficient high-output wind turbine. Hawaiian Electric Co. dedicated the new 5-MW Kalaeloa solar farm in West Oahu, Hawaii. And more...