Will financiers dominate the market?
How to reduce the cycling costs of conventional generation.
Operations & Maintenance
The process of calculating meaningful benchmarks is fraught with pitfalls.
Regulatory reporting requirements for major U.S. utilities provide a wealth of data for benchmarking studies. Both the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) Form 1 for electric utilities and FERC Form 2 for gas utilities involve the reporting of more than 2,500 unique data points per utility per year, across diverse aspects of utility operations, maintenance, and finance.
People for October 2004
Higher payouts aren't enough over the long term.
The past two years witnessed the ascendancy of dividend yield in the valuations of U.S. electric utilities. The recent primacy of yield in utility-industry valuations is the product of a unique confluence of factors. The collapse of most of the industry's non-regulated growth initiatives has resulted in a market that attributes little value to the industry's growth prospects beyond that which has been historically generated by the expansion of rate base-1 to 3 percent.
A holistic, new approach to cost/benefit analysis.
The still-fresh memories of last year's Northeast blackout coupled with rising congestion nationwide have increased awareness of the electric transmission investment shortfall in the United States. Such investment, in the right locations, would have a highly positive benefit-cost ratio. But how much should be spent?
Will a back-to-basics strategy meet investor expectations?
Power Measurement
Failing the Market-Power Test:
How FERC's ruling could affect wholesale power markets.
Diversified companies lead (and the globals lag) over the past five years.
Technology Corridor
Cyber and Physical Security:
Although NERC and other agencies are helping out, utilities still face internal obstacles.