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Law & Lawyers

X Marks the Spot: How U.K. Utilities Have Fared Under Performance-Based Ratemaking

Returns for U.K. RECs have proven resilient, despite price cuts, efficiency targets, and the windfall profit tax.

Performance-based ratemaking in the United Kingdom is now entering its third "generation," or regulatory period. Due to the sharpened incentives of PBR relative to cost-of-service regulation, the UK has seen a substantial improvement in electricity distribution productivity, annual gains of 3.5 percent. The price cap form of PBR, incorporating an X factor, is being adopted in an increasing number of regions, from the Netherlands to Canada.
Byline: 

A.J. Goulding, Julia Frayer and Jeffery Waller

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Izzbee, Izz it?

The Energy Industry Standards Board doesn't exist yet, but it's got regulators talking.

More than two years ago, I suggested in this column that regional independent system operators would likely supplant the regional reliability councils as the caretakers of electric system reliability. And that's still possible—if the ISOs move quickly to RTO status, and if the RTOs get cracking right away on adopting uniform business rules. But the FERC may get tired waiting for that to happen.

Byline: 

Bruce W. Radford

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Wind Power, Poised for Take Off?

A survey of projects and economics.

An industry advocate touts the recent rise of projects in the pipeline and forsees remarkable growth in wind farms over the next twenty years — more, perhaps, than others would concede.
Byline: 

Christine Real de Azua

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Larceny Debunked

Reliant comes clean on profits, says California picked its own pocket.

While the media made hay chiding power producers for gouging consumers for electricity generated from gas-fired turbines, California' s system of a single market-clearing price for electricity was "delivering immense windfalls" to utilities who had no need to buy gas at all to run the power plants they still owned (or controlled through affiliates).
Byline: 

PUF

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ICAP: A Make-Believe Market?

New England puts a price on electric reliability, but some say the charge looks more like a tax.

Does ICAP qualify as a true commercial product, traded on its own merit with a tangible value for customers?
Byline: 

Bruce W. Radford

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People

David E. Meador, Robert G. Harvey, Dennis Spurgeon, Erroll B. Davis, Jr., and more.
Byline: 

PUF

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U.S. Gas Production: Can We Trust the Projections?

Government (EIA) forecasts suffer in credibility when compared with geologic assessments.

The EIA predicts that natural gas consumption will climb more than 60 percent percent over 20 years, driving U.S. production up 50-plus percent over the same period. How does that square with geologic assessments?
Byline: 

Emil Attanasi

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