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Law & Lawyers

Combined Heat & Power, Revisited

Outdated "wisdom" wastes the nation's electricity infrastructure. Distributed CH&P is the answer.

One of the system’s greatest flaws has been its inefficient — even wasteful — use of fuel resources in the face of opportunities to implement combined heat and power.
Byline: 

Gary Nakarado and Holly Thomas

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The New Dividend Kings

Sizable gains return to the market.

SNL’s safe dividend picks appeared to do well for any market. However, like the fine golden years of the late ’90s for all things technology, recent months have returned sizable gains to investors of energy stocks—not what one would expect from slow growth, dividend-paying electric and gas utilities that make up the majority of the SNL Energy universe.
Byline: 

Scott Barclay

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Bankruptcy Courts vs. FERC Smackdown!

The developing jurisdictional battle over authorizing rejection of wholesale power supply agreements is getting white-hot, pitting creditors against ratepayers.

Creditors and ratepayers are at odds in a high-stakes jurisdictional battle over wholesale power supply agreements. In an industry littered with bankrupt and troubled energy marketers, the issue is more than academic.
Byline: 

Howard L. Siegel

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Cycle Frequencies Drive Turbine Choices

The 50 hertz market is poised for growth as the 60 hertz market levels off.

At the beginning of 2003, 59.2% of the world’s installed generating capacity operated on 50 hertz and 40.8% on 60 hertz. As markets such as Southeast Asia and China, which run on 50 hertz, begin to surpass traditional markets in capacity additions, this balance will shift even further toward 50 hertz.
Byline: 

Arnold Leitner

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Letters to the Editor

Letters from Andrew Paterson, a principal at Environmental Business International, and Professor Sheldon Landsberger, Director, Nuclear Engineering Teaching Lab, University of Texas at Austin.
Byline: 

PUF

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The Politics of AMR

The industry continues to debate the costs and technology of automated meter reading, even as some regulators insist on immediate implementation.

Whether a PUC should order AMR implementation may become an issue industrywide. Additionally, the merger of two prominent AMR vendors has executives worried.
Byline: 

Lori A. Burkhart and Richard Stavros

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Aquila: Better Off Dead?

Bankruptcy may not be better for ratepayers.

In an ironic twist, Aquila now looks more and more like a traditional, stick-to-the-knitting electric utility. There is no longer any unregulated operation to worry about.
Byline: 

Richard Stavros

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Edison Shrugged

The crisis of confidence in today's power industry is, at its heart, a crisis of ideas.

A market-based system requires that regulators establish a level playing field but not interfere unduly with the game itself.
Byline: 

John B. Howe

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People

People for September 2003.

New positions at Mirant, Chesapeake Utilities, Mid-Atlantic Conference of Regulatory Utilities Commissioners, and others.
Byline: 

PUF

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Resource Planning After the Crash

How to update yesterday's IRP model to account for tomorrow's risk profile.

How to update yesterday's IRP model to account for tomorrow's risk profile.

 

The process we know today as integrated resource planning (IRP) got its start back in the 1980s, when regulators first came to grips with nuclear plant cost overruns and urged utilities in effect to hedge that risk-to give equal weight to conservation, "negawatts," and demand-side management (DSM) as sources of new electric capacity.

Byline: 
Gary Vicinus, Mike Gettings, Art Holland, Tom La Berge, Ruben Moreno
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