News Analysis

 

Questar Gets Its Way in Utah

 

Mail

 

A call for utilities to leave the marketing business.

Many of us on the front lines can identify with Stanley Klein's observation that, in terms of its implementation, the restructuring of the electric power industry is "fundamentally an information technology event."¹

 

PLT could allow energy companies to provide Internet, voice, and data via the grid, but technological hurdles and fierce competition remain obstacles.

News Analysis

 

EDI Standards: At a Snail's Pace in New York

 

The fuel cell article in the March 15 Fortnightly twice mentions a target of $50 per kilowatt for fuel cells. (See "Fuel Cells: White Knight for Natural Gas?" p. 22.)

I hadn't heard that target before. At that price, something like the General Electric/Plug Power residential unit of 7 kilowatts would cost $350 (instead of something like $3,500, which has been talked about). Anything close to $50 per kilowatt would be truly incredible.

State regulators say they won't bargain under "threat of blackouts," but their complaint only highlights how the power is shifting.

The Michigan Public Service Commission is concerned about power supplies this summer - so much so that for the third year in a row it has ordered electric utilities in the state to file plans assessing their generation and transmission capacity for the upcoming summer.

New technologies cloud the future for the traditional electric utility, but offer hope to the gas industry in boosting residential demand.

Investors apparently were paying attention in January when a Web-based analyst predicted Plug Power's stocks could gain 10,000 percent or more by 2010. Before month's end, the fuel cell manufacturer, which doesn't expect to turn a profit before 2004, saw a ninefold increase from the $16 closing day share price at its October initial public offering. That month Avista Corp.