Off Peak
Et Tu, Mexico?
A consultant questions whether our trade partner's role in organizing cutbacks in world oil production is consistent with NAFTA obligations.
Perspective
April 1, 2000
News Digest
People
Frontlines
A Fax From Al Gore
Tracking Stock for Utilities: Highway to Higher Valuations?
Telecoms may offer IOUs a model for multiplying market caps by dividing their shareholdings.April 1, 2000
Ten Energy Mergers and How They Stack Up
= {Operating Profit - Cost of capital} x capital Capital
= (Return on capital - cost of capital) x capital.
Hydro Relicensing Redux: Will Dams Be Saved?
Congressmen, industry experts, and environmentalists square off over efforts to streamline relicensing.
April 1, 2000
Off Peak
As energy suppliers gather more detail about customers, opportunities for segmenting and selling them will increase during the next five years.
As technology such as AMR and improved information-gathering systems enhance customer data, energy service providers will be well-positioned to segment load profiles into valuable blocks for sale. According to PHB Hagler Bailly's "Energy Industry Outlook 2000," this bottom-line-enhancing possibility will contribute to the changing customer-energy supplier relationship during the next five years.
News Analysis
State regulators say they won't bargain under "threat of blackouts," but their complaint only highlights how the power is shifting.
The Michigan Public Service Commission is concerned about power supplies this summer - so much so that for the third year in a row it has ordered electric utilities in the state to file plans assessing their generation and transmission capacity for the upcoming summer.