Energy Dept.'s Evolving Outlook for US Power Sector
Looking Back on Accuracy of Past Forecasts
Coal share with the Clean Power Plan could drop to below 20 percent.
Response to Mitnick Re: What Consumers Want
A response to the Editor-in-Chief column by Steve Mitnick in our May 2016 issue
Unless and until we have access to economic bulk storage, substitution of carbon-free sources for fossil fuels will increase cost significantly. The cost must be borne by some combination of taxpayers and ratepayers.
Storage: Turning Disruptive Technology into Opportunity
Commercial Customer Case Study
Recent declines in energy storage costs have allowed businesses and homeowners to economically store electricity for a few hours. It is long enough to disrupt peak demand charges that many utilities rely on for their cash flows.
Need for New Regulatory/Business Models
How to Help Them Understand the New Competitive Marketplace
Understand the mindset of legislators and regulators: constituent satisfaction is key for both. State legislators are the folks who can change the regulatory model.
Nice Work If You Can Get It
Rate of Return for Fun and Profit
If you want actionable intelligence up front, here it is: invest in regulated utilities. There is mounting evidence that investment in utility stocks has outperformed the broader market in the past, and will continue to do so.
Marginal Utility
Changing the Electric Utility Financial Paradigm
Global capital markets have accommodated the industry with low interest rates and high stock price multiples, but capital markets are fickle. Electrics will be capitalized more like other industrial companies, and less like regulated monopolies.
Pay-As-Bid Revisited
Many see a higher cap as a windfall for nuclear and coal.
FERC’s new rulemaking proposal would allow generators to tender supply bids higher than $1,000 per megawatt-hour, if it really costs that much to buy fuel to generate power. Some opponents say that may be OK for gas-fired turbines, but it’s not needed for nuclear or coal-fired plants.
Topping the $1k Cap
Still Beyond the Pale?
Two decades into our grand experiment with wholesale power markets and we’re still debating the need for a cap on prices.
Estimating Benefits of Reducing Greenhouse Gas Emissions
Social Cost of Carbon
In Paris at the end of 2015, the world’s governments decided to be more ambitious than ever on climate change. They set their sights on a goal of limiting the increase in average global temperature to well below two degrees Celsius. Countries committed to constrain their greenhouse gas emissions over the next 10 to 15 years.
The Mobiles are FAST
Including mobile substations in Strategic Transformer Reserve Program
Both spare large power transformers, and emergency mobile substations, have critical roles in the U.S. Department of Energy's Strategic Transformer Reserve Program, STRP. An emergency mobile substation can literally roll onto the site on the bed of a truck, run connecting wires to the power lines, and bypass all of the damaged substation equipment, allowing electricity to flow again within hours.