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Strategy & Planning

Surprising Energy Requirements of the Cannabis Industry

Part I: Implications for Utilities, Regulators

The legal cannabis industry in the U.S. is experiencing rapid growth. That growth and its commensurate energy demands are placing strains on some individual utilities and local grids. In Part I, we forecast electricity demands, analyze problems resulting from the immense energy requirements, and assess some potential implications for the cannabis industry and for utilities.
Byline: 

Roger Bezdek, Michael Harshfield, Sean Tegart, Ujjval Vyas

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Nuclear Innovation Is Not an Oxymoron

EPRI Podcast: Advanced Nuclear Looks Promising

Advanced nuclear technologies are closer to reality than you might think. To make a breakthrough, they'll need to provide significant advantages over current technologies, such as operating at low pressures and very high temperatures, and including inherent safety features.
Byline: 

Aimee Mills with Tina Taylor, Andrew Sowder, and Shane Johnson

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Perpetuating the California Dream

Leadership Lyceum Podcast: A conversation with Edison International CEO Pedro Pizarro

Edison International is the publicly traded holding company for Southern California Edison, the regulated utility, and a small array of non-regulated investments, plus Edison Energy. At $11.5 billion in annual revenue, and serving 15 million customers, the company is one of the largest utilities in the country.
Byline: 

Pedro Pizarro, with Tom Linquist

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Energy People: Arshad Mansoor

We talked with Arshad Mansoor, Senior Vice President, Research and Development for the Electric Power Research Institute

Arshad Mansoor is responsible for EPRI's portfolio of R&D and demonstration programs. He is a senior member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers and is a member of the board of The Energy Production and Infrastructure Center (EPIC) at UNC Charlotte.
Byline: 

Arshad Mansoor, with Steve Mitnick

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Utility's Role in Electricity's Future, Part II

Utility Execs Roundtable: We continued the conversation with execs from seven utilities in the Northeast who help lead their companies on future strategies

In part II of our roundtable, we discuss how new products and services are expected to create new revenue streams for utilities, augmenting the (slowly) declining traditional revenue.
Byline: 

Navigant and Public Utilities Fortnightly

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Why Innovation?

Also, What, Who, Where, When?

Why is innovation all the rage? Yes, continual improvement always makes sense. But the dramatic changes being talked about, are they that urgent? Let's recognize how much customers vary in their electricity wants and needs, within service territories, between territories, and between states.
Byline: 

Steve Mitnick

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A Faster Flight to Value

Collaborating to Get More, Sooner

Imagine five or ten utilities teamed up to advance useful applications of drones to the industry. Whether with drones or some other emerging opportunity, collaboration is a smart path to more value, faster.
Byline: 

Roger Woodworth

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Moral Economics and Power

Neo-Liberalism's Consequences

Adam Smith's first book, “The Theory of Moral Sentiments,” argued that people acted not just for money, but also out of professional pride, fairness, patriotism, altruism and other non-economic reasons. Maybe the time has come to revisit Adam Smith and his important first book.
Byline: 

Leonard Hyman and William Tilles

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New Year 2017: The Trump Administration

Change Will Occur, Slowly

It is not possible to know what priorities the new administration will pursue. It is possible for legislators, regulators, and utilities to make some assumptions: coal will continue to decline as a generation fuel, previous utility investment and court decisions will carry forward. Legislators will continue to promote generation fuel diversity to best ensure system reliability.
Byline: 

Kansas Representative Tom Sloan

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