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PJM/Midwest Market: Two Rival Groups Battle Over Grid Pricing

Should transmission owners get paid extra for distance and voltage?

While the Midwest now appears set on competitive bidding for the electricity commodity, taking from PJM such tried-and-true elements as locational marginal pricing, financial transmission rights, and a day-ahead market with a security-constrained dispatch, the region remains split over the pricing of transmission.
Byline: 

Bruce Radford

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Changing Capital Structures for Changing Times

The utilities industry is in need of more equity.

Value Line projects that total capital for electric utilities will increase about 12 percent during the next several years, while common equity will increase nearly 28 percent. Similarly, natural gas distribution company total capital is projected to increase about 10 percent, and common equity close to 15 percent. For both industries, the median common equity ratio in the near-term future for companies with investment-grade rated subsidiaries is in the range of 51 to 52 percent. For utilities, higher equity ratios are desirable for several reasons.
Byline: 

Robert G. Rosenberg

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Backed By Wind

The need for additional generation to compensate for wind variations is disappearing.

Utility-based studies have laid to rest the concern that a wind plant needs to be backed up with an equal amount of dispatchable generation. Even at moderate penetrations, ancillary services to back up new wind power need not be more than is required of a system as a whole.
Byline: 

Ron L. Lehr

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Renewable Energy: Growing Pains, Halting Gains

Technology Corridor: Mandatory portfolio standards have different implications for different technologies.

The federal government and several state governments are considering programs to increase the share of electricity produced by renewable generation resources to 20 percent or more. If these programs are implemented and pursued successfully, they will trigger a dramatic change in the role of renewable generation and the requirements placed upon it by the market.
Byline: 

Edward A. Reid Jr.

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Regulatory Uncertainty: The Ratemaking Challenge Continues

In a joint survey conducted by Navigant Consulting and Public Utilities Fortnightly, utility executives identify the biggest challenge to their business.

A joint survey of utility executives by Navigant Consulting and Public Utilities Fortnightly identifies the biggest challenge regulators face.
Byline: 

Russell A. Feingold

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Transmission Upgrades: Who Pays?

How to allocate the costs.

An author examines the impact of hypothetical congestion-reduction projects on generators and loads that are part of a vertically integrated utility, and generators independently owned in a deregulated environment.
Byline: 

John Seelke

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High Gas Prices: The Edge Comes Off

Conservation programs, plus an erosion in domestic manufacturing, will lead to a falloff in gas demand.

Despite some expected problems this upcoming heating season, current high prices and new conservation programs will contribute to a decline in expected natural-gas demand over the next several years.
Byline: 

John H. Herbert

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State Regulators: Driven By Reliability

Can natural gas supply keep up with demand for power?

Reliability and utility infrastructure development remain regulators’ top concerns. This year’s Regulators Forum spans the different regions of the country to highlight the most pressing issues facing the industry.
Byline: 

Lori A. Burkhart

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The New Money Pipelines

Business & Money: Merchant plants now draw investors from three different worlds — each with its own agenda.

It's tempting to chalk up the recent bubble in merchant generation to just another industry cycle, but there's more to consider. Investors have not made a wholesale exit from power finance. It is true that many have taken significant losses. It is also true that some remain wary. Despite all this, investors continue to enter the market and address the needs of the industry today.
Byline: 

Ren Plastina

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