No-Regrets Approach to Enhancing Grid Resiliency
Grid Assurance, innovative industry-driven response
Subscribers can reduce their costs by 30 to 70 percent compared with maintaining their own stockpile.
Strategy & Planning
Unsung Role of Fossil Fuels in the Miracle of U.S. Growth
Past, Present, and Future, Part I
Robert Gordon’s seminal book, The Rise and Fall of American Growth, has a pessimistic message with profound economic, social, and political implications. But nowhere in Gordon’s 762-page book does he give credit to fossil fuels for the economic miracle of the past two centuries. In this article, I focus on the critical historical role that fossil fuels played in creating the technological and economic miracles that Gordon articulates so well.
Energy People: John Hargrove
We talked with John Hargrove, CEO of the Association of Energy Services Professionals.
John Hargrove has led the Association of Energy Professionals since March 2015. Previously, Hargrove was director of renewable programs at NV Energy in Nevada for 11 years.
POPS Is Here to Stay
Reports of Plain Old Power Service’s death greatly exaggerated
The vast majority of electric consumers want reliable, clean, reasonably priced electricity, and little else.
Marginal Utility
The Carbon Paradigm Shift
The telephone companies dumped land lines for cellular, and prospered, thanks to their size, ability to raise funds, and name recognition. They migrated to a new paradigm. Can’t electricity providers?
A Robotic Concrete Crawler
Play Station Controls Guide Robot on Concrete Inspection Trips
EPRI has designed a robot for inspecting hard-to-reach concrete surfaces. A robotic inspection system would eliminate the need to use scaffolding or rappelling for routine structural evaluations, eliminating the associated setup challenges, time requirements, costs, and safety hazards.
Here Comes the Sun
Growing Impacts of Residential Solar on Utility Customer Service
What does PV mean for utilities’ residential customer service operations? From helping customers with supplier selection, through installation and maintenance issues? And with billing? To begin to address this question, we conducted two sets of surveys of residential electricity customers in the second quarter of 2016.
Ratemaking and the Campaign Against Rooftop Solar
Rate design should balance consumer and investor interests.
Regulators should ensure that changes to rate design seek to balance consumer and utility interests. Rates that are intended to insulate utilities from economic and technological change while providing no benefits to consumers ought to be considered unjust, unreasonable, and unduly discriminatory.
The Consumer-Centric Utility
Empowering Consumers while Managing Risk and Optimizing Assets
Electric utilities do not simply sell a commodity. They sell safe, affordable, reliable and clean electric service. The “Consumer-Centric Utility” business model provides a viable framework for utilities while enabling new products and services that meet growing consumer expectations.
Beware of Vertical Arrangements for Gas Procurement
Owning gas reserves benefits consumers?
Regulators should start with the premise that long-term contracting with an independent gas producer or middleman is preferable (e.g., with a marketer). Vertical arrangements pose a number of tough questions for state public utility regulators.