It is almost impossible to design an effective hedge program without first determining the exact objectives a company wants to achieve. Although this sounds obvious, it rarely is. Management usually can agree that the firm should hedge to reduce risk, but “risk” is too vague a term to justify hedging on its own.

Did Congress really invite the industry to re-examine the concept of economic dispatch, as practiced by the regional grid operators and RTOs, through market bids, day-ahead markets, a centralized auction, and a uniform market-clearing price? Perhaps not, but skeptics of RTO practice have called the bluff, if that’s what it was.

Almost 40 percent of utility workers will become eligible for retirement in the next five years. Assuming only nominal growth, the industry by 2010 will need to hire 10,000 new skilled workers each year. Exacerbating this situation is a host of social and market factors that constrain the supply of skilled workers and make the workforce gap especially challenging for electric and gas utilities.

New talent is scarce. And keeping the old talent takes imagination. How are utilities handling changes in personnel markets? We speak with several leading HR consultants to get their views.

The approaching 100th anniversary of regulation by public utility commissions in the United States calls for some reflection. How much have things changed, and how much have they stayed the same?

Applying the traditional rate-base concept to the new hybrid companies is where the gap between the old and the new regulatory paradigms resembles a deep schism. The current shifts in regulation should cause regulators to revisit and reconsider concepts that once reigned supreme in ratemaking.

The march of technology, the urgent call for greater grid investment, and a painful recent past have caught up with the utilities industry. One key area of preventative maintenance for utilities is the transformer, many of which are decades old. Representing approximately $200 billion in investment, these units—which currently number approximately 100,000—can’t be replaced overnight.

With upward of 50 percent of the utility industry’s workforce approaching retirement, the industry’s leadership, at all levels, must come to grips with this enormous challenge. This looming demographic challenge is not simply a human-resources problem. For most of the industry, it poses a very real threat to the bottom line and touches upon the fundamental ability of the company to pursue its mission. The path to survival will require non-traditional thinking around all the people levers—staffing, work planning, compensation, work processes, performance management, development, job and organization design, and, most important, leadership.

There’s been a lot of talk in the industry about new super powers for market enforcement, conferred by Congress on FERC in last year’s energy legislation. But this hasn’t been the case entirely. Many believe that FERC still labors at a disadvantage.

(June 2006) Mirant Corp. appointed Jose (Joey) P. Leviste Jr. as chairman, president, and CEO of Mirant Philippines, and as a senior vice president of Mirant Corp. Ian C. Connor joined Goldman Sachs in 2006 as a managing director in its Power & Energy Group. Unitil Corp. shareholders elected Robert G. Schoenberger, Charles H. Tenney III, and Dr. Sarah P. Voll to its board of directors. Piedmont Natural Gas announced several changes in the company’s executive management team.