Airlines: Like Electric Utilities
Deregulation: A History Lesson
It dawned on me. The early days of DER mirror the early days of airline deregulation, with two fundamental differences.
Perspective
Big City, Lights Back On
For decades Kathmandu (Nepal) all but disappeared when the sun went down.
Aggressive demand-side management is reviving the city’s economy.
When Water Meets Energy
Each essential. Each dependent on the other.
Water depends on energy and energy depends on water, creating opportunities for synergies and efficiencies.
Microgrids: Where's the Beef?
Integration beats islanding, anyway you slice it.
A microgrid is a throwback. It’s anathema to what we know about economies of scale. Integration is what maximizes the ability of least-cost resources to reach load. By interfering with least-cost dispatch, microgrids can only raise energy costs.
EPA, NERC and Reliability
Expect more analysis – more scenarios, more detail – as state compliance plans become better known.
As things stand today, even without the Clean Power Plan, we expect to see the retirement of more than 6 percent of North America’s generation capacity by 2030.
Our Nuclear Lifeline
Learning from the tragedy of Vermont Yankee.
Learning from the tragedy of Vermont Yankee. Can merchant nuclear operators compete in the market place with cheap natural gas and subsidized renewables?
Segment and Conquer
To measure efficiency, you needn’t count every customer.
True believers don’t respond much to urging – they will save energy regardless. So why not just ignore them in measuring the success of energy efficiency programs?
Why Care About Transactive Energy?
Only if you’re a governor, legislator, regulator ... or customer.
When ratepayers become generators, the utility industry is turned upside-down. A warning to legislators, regulators – and even governors – on what to expect.
Start the Conversation
The regulator’s role in a world divided by distributed generation.
A state utility commissioner urges her colleagues to begin planning now for distributed generation – before it’s too late.
Miles to Go
Progress has been made, but much work remains along the path to ERO completion.
FERC demonstrated strong leadership in meeting the aggressive timeline set by Congress for establishing the regulatory basis on which the Electric Reliability Organization will be created. But next summer’s peak-demand season is fast approaching. And much more work remains ahead for the industry to finish the job.