Reliable But Costly
Recent trends in distribution line undergrounding.
Utility distribution lines increasingly are going underground, but costs are still prohibitive for replacing existing overhead lines.
Transmission
Utility System Hardening
Taking Resiliency One Step Further
An independent system operator for the distribution network could allow utilities to invest in rooftop solar behind the meter and within territory.
Wireless Sensor Technology
Equipment health monitoring for the modern utility.
Wireless sensors open new, novel applications for utilities, replacing expensive cabling network options to sense incipient equipment failures.
In the Crosshairs
Protecting substations and transformers after the PG&E Metcalf attack.
The latest fallout from the April 2013 Metcalf incident: the unprecedented assault with high-powered rifles on PG&E’s Metcalf substation, in Silicon Valley, which disabled 17 of 20 large transformers.
Future Shock
ERCOT load growth: patterns, possibilities, and second thoughts.
Data from ERCOT indicates that energy intensity is falling markedly, as measured in terms of kWh usage per number of nonfarm jobs. That suggests much less future load growth, yet EIA data based on nationwide scenarios do not seem to agree.
Big Wind in the Big Oil State
ERCOT readies for renewable market integration.
ERCOT readies to integrate a large future influx of wind generation and finds need for new, more flexible resources to provide ancillary services – preferably a zero-to-five-minute ramping resource which, unfortunately, does not correspond to any currently existing technology or market product.
Scare Tactics
New England’s proposed capacity market reform would force generators to ‘Be There or Else.’
Facing worries about resource adequacy, ISO New England proposes changes that would penalize generators that fail to perform when needed -- for any reason. Market players say it can only work if the system operator allows for reasonable exceptions.
Reinventing the Grid
How to find a future that works.
The traditional central-station grid is evolving toward a more distributed architecture, accommodating a variety of resources spread out across the network. An open and thoughtful planning approach will allow an orderly transition to an integrated system – while fostering innovation among a wider range of industry players.
Invoice Enclosed
Having lost Entergy to MISO, the Southwest Power Pool seeks its pound of flesh.
Welcome to the age of RTO competition: region vs. region, grid vs. grid. It could well outdo the choice wars between retail energy suppliers that we thought were in our future.
Life in the Transco Age
The competitive transmission genie is out of the bottle.
FERC Orders 890 and 1000 have opened the doors to independent transcos, heralding an era of innovation to solve reliability and capacity problems.