What Solar Success Looks Like
Managing the transition to a solar-powered future.
Solar energy has a bright future as part of America’s electric power industry. An orderly and beneficial transition will depend on strategic action.
Strategy & Planning
Productivity Plateau
A mature industry faces a worrying round of hype.
Are we languishing, or working off a 20th-century legacy? Gartner’s hype cycle suggests the latter, as new technologies start producing value.
A Trip to RIIO in Your Future?
Great Britain’s latest innovation in grid regulation.
Great Britain’s electric regulator takes performance-based regulation to a new, more complex level, weighing policy choices against attendant costs.
Manpower Strategy for Mutual Aid
Superstorm Sandy showed that when it comes to manpower, resources to execute normal operations are becoming scarcer. A new strategy is required to coordinate disaster response and recovery.
Where Did My People Go?
Today’s talent deficiency is tomorrow’s imperative.
The utility talent gap is widening. New technologies and evolving markets call for a more proactive approach to building the future workforce.
Low Tech Resilience
Portable small-scale generators could keep vital services on line during a major power outage.
High-voltage generation reserves cost more than would portable, small-scale units to keep critical services on line during a major power outage.
Bargain or Bonanza
Is discounted cash flow (DCF) still a reliable tool for determining equity cost?
The time-honored discounted cash flow method for determining appropriate utility returns falls short when interest rates are low. Inadequate ROEs ultimately increase cost of capital and wipe away any temporary savings.
Energy Disconnect
Misguided policies threaten resource adequacy.
Resource planning is grinding to a halt. From EPA regulations to irrational markets, today’s policy missteps threaten tomorrow’s reliability.
Pricing Social Benefits
Calculating and allocating costs for non-traditional utility services.
Alternative ways to calculate utilities’ costs of service allow policy makers to achieve social goals in a way that’s fair and economically efficient.
SGIP, New and Improved
Making the case for collaboration on interoperability standards
The mission of harmonizing industry standards moves forward in the work of the Smart Grid Interoperability Panel 2.0, Inc.