Law & Lawyers

I Quit!

EPA director steps down, and tells you why.

I resign today from the Environmental Protection Agency after 12 years of service. I cannot leave without sharing my frustration about the fate of our enforcement actions against power companies that have violated the Clean Air Act.

Crawling from the Wreckage

Can California’s energy market be salvaged?

The whole world watched the California energy market debacle. Now, economists talk about what it would take to rebuild California into a truly competitive power market.

The Economists: On the Future of Energy Markets

Uncertainty clouds direction of FERC’s market engineering.

The failure of California markets, Enron, and the low-point of the merchant plant business cycle has left many executives pessimistic over the prospects that true competitive markets in energy will develop. Top economists discuss the industry’s outlook.

Moving Gas to Generate Power: An Encore for Hrehor/Sytsma

While responsive to the operational requirements of the particular systems, several new pipeline services enable generators to react more promptly to spiking electric demand.

Putting flesh on the gas-power vision, pipeline efforts to formulate services for generators, and FERC orders governing those efforts now assume a discernible shape. This is a reasonable time to take stock.

M&A 2002: The Need for Strategic Clarity

What type of merger strategy should energy companies pursue in light of new industry uncertainties?

Learn about the nature of mergers and acquisitions expected within the natural gas, power, and energy utility sector.

FERC's New Move: A Single Tariff

Finding that "market design flaws are visible in every regional electric market today," FERC released its working paper on standardized transmission service and wholesale electric design on March 15. The work in progress outlines key principles and policy decisions on standard market design (SMD) to guide FERC in developing a revised open access transmission tariff (OATT).

Locational Marginal Pricing

How PJM turns redispatch into market signals.

Figures 1 and 2 show an example of locational marginal pricing (LMP) presented by PJM at a FERC meeting held Jan. 22.

Utility Valuation: Shedding Light on the Black Box

Experts debate how energy companies should be valued in the wake of electric restructuring and Enron.

Credit downgrades, bankruptcy, and investor backlash against energy companies has exposed how inadequate the valuation of energy companies is. Experts debate just how to value the industry.