Strategy & Planning

PPL CEO Interviewed

We went to Allentown and talked with Bill Spence.

What are the most exciting things happening at PPL? What were the biggest challenges in that journey? Were there some tough challenges you had to get through?

We Made Light Free

As inexpensive as lighting was, twenty years ago, we’ve since made it close to free. Too cheap to meter?

Will lighting drop to a tenth of residential consumption, then below? Every use of a machine, appliance, device shrunk in its significance to the household budget.

Technological Innovation and Public Policy-Making

The new grid will be driven by opportunities for electric utilities and customers to monetize their economic opportunities.

Policy-maker’s perspective: It's important to permit utilities to become more efficient and develop alternative revenue streams.

Schneiderman Targets Peabody Energy

Shareholder Protection or War on Coal?

Why did Schneiderman sue Peabody? Because Peabody is America’s biggest coal company. He also likely wanted to establish a precedent before launching a Martin Act investigation of even bigger game: ExxonMobil.

Improving Performance in Publicly Owned Utilities

Consistently setting, measuring, and updating quantitative performance metrics should be a central feature of any program.

Modern performance-management practices can – and should – be applied to public and private utilities alike.

Utility Streetlighting Retrofits

Getting to “yes” with cities and neighborhoods.

Xcel Energy Colorado envisioned a straightforward plan: Street by street, city by city, in a logical progression over five years, they would replace High-Pressure Sodium streetlights with Light-Emitting Diode lamps. But that’s not what happened.

FERC Revises Market-Based Rate Procedures

Order 816 indicates the commission is scrutinizing the underlying calculations of market power analyses.

This revision could have significant impact on market power analyses of certain franchised utilities and affiliated MBR entities.

Community Solar

Answers to questions you were afraid to ask

Community solar is expected to jump fivefold. What exactly is it and how exactly does it work?

Solar Shines As Regulatory Battles Abound

A tough legal and financial terrain is confronting producers, utilities and regulators.

State commissions are challenged to find the sweet spot whereby utilities can afford to maintain their systems and homeowners are motivated to go green.