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Strategy & Planning

Turning Toward Customers

Utility transformation guided by improved customer insight.

Improved customer insight can help utilities transform their business models, to strengthen engagement with consumers and remain competitive as the energy sector evolves.
Byline: 

Osvald Bjelland

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All You Need to Know

Picturing utilities in a series of sobering snapshots.

Utilities are growing rate base despite static or declining demand: making customers pay more for a product they want less of.
Byline: 

Leonard S. Hyman

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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.
Byline: 

Julia Hamm

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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.
Byline: 

Michael T. Burr, Editor-in-Chief

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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.
Byline: 

Peter Fox-Penner, Dan Harris, and Serena Hesmondhalgh 

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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.
Byline: 

Scott Cisel and Bill Ernzen

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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.

Byline: 

Susan W. Christensen, Sandra L. Jones, and Brian Payne

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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.

Byline: 

William Zarakas, Frank Graves, and Sanem Sergici

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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.
Byline: 

Carmen L. Gentile and Monica M. Berry

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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.

Byline: 

Stephen L. Teichler and Dennis Hough

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