Energy Policy & Legislation

Market Manipulation: The Business Questions

Ten points to remember for compliance and employee training.

Without a clear definition of market manipulation, or a detailed description for prohibited conduct, market participants are often left with more questions than answers.
Byline: 

Joseph Hall and Thomas Gorman

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There and Back Again

Why a residential demand rate developed 40 years ago is increasingly relevant today.

Why not design a rate that allocates the higher system cost to customers based on their actual energy demand?
Byline: 

Leland Snook and Meghan Grabel

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Rhode Island: The Challenge of an Aging Infrastructure

2015 Regulators Forum

Clearly, one of the most significant issues we face today is aging infrastructure. It’s akin to a marathon – a race we absolutely have to finish. Since 1990 we’ve replaced more than 65,000 miles of cast iron and bare steel pipe, but we still have a long way to go.
Byline: 

Paul J. Roberti, Rhode Island PUC

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South Dakota: A Unique Fuel Mix

Chris Nelson, vice-chairman, South Dakota Pub. Utils. Comm’n

Seventy-three percent of our generation is carbon-free, yet the EPA’s 111(d) rules require a 48 percent reduction in our CO2 emission rate. That steep reduction will be very difficult to achieve and will be costly for our electric customers. The commission’s chief concern is keeping a lid on consumer prices, especially given the pressure exerted by EPA.
Byline: 

2015 Regulators Forum

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Oregon: Situated Quite Well

2015 Regulators Forum

States that have coal-dependent economies will likely have more difficulty complying with the Clean Power Plan than states like Oregon. There will be rate impacts to be sure. The trick will be compliance at the most reasonable cost that that can be assured.
Byline: 

Susan Ackerman, chair, Oregon PUC

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2015 Regulators Forum

State Utility Commissioners in Their Own Words

Susan Ackerman, chair, Oregon PUC; Chris Nelson, vice-chairman, South Dakota PUC; Tim G. Echols, Georgia PSC; Paul J. Roberti, Rhode Island PUC
Byline: 

Susan Ackerman, Chris Nelson, Tim G. Echols, and Paul J. Roberti

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Life Without Building Block 4

Energy Efficiency under EPA’s Final Clean Power Plan.

Energy efficiency remains the most cost-effective route to compliance with the Clean Power Plan. In the final Clean Power Plan rule issued August 3, 2015, EPA did not include Energy Efficiency in the calculations used to develop state targets. However, EPA and the White House have made it abundantly clear that energy efficiency remains just as viable a compliance option as before.
Byline: 

John Hargrove

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Open-Access Chronicles: The Backstory Behind Electric Restructuring

Part 3: When Competition Turns to War

By September 1997, Philadelphia Electric Co. had outflanked key opponents and filed a proposed partial settlement with the Penn. PUC to allow the company to recover costs that might become stranded under a new law (enacted a year before) that had brought a measure of competition to the state’s electric utility industry. Then Enron went to work.
Byline: 

William Pentland

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Searching for Equilibrium

How to achieve it in the era of distributed energy

In the emerging era of distributed energy resources, we will find the distribution utility increasingly in the role of an integrator and enabler – more than their longstanding role as energy provider. Accordingly, the regulatory approach must go through its own structural shift to keep pace and restore the system to regulatory equilibrium.
Byline: 

David J. O’Brien

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