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Law & Lawyers

BGS Auctions: What Price Is Right?

How to price new load-servicing contracts while incorporating market-risk analysis into such deals.

Why have basic generation service auctions historically been overly competitive given the prevailing market prices at the time? Here are four steps to determine correctly what should the bid price should be.
Byline: 

Andy Dunn

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The Hazards of ElectroMagnetic Terrorism

And why North American power plants should take note.

Electromagnetic terrorism has huge implications for the international power industry. The North American electric power network is vulnerable to electronic intrusions launched from anywhere in the world, according to studies by the White House, FBI, IEEE, North American Electric Reliability Council (NERC), and National Security Telecommunications Advisory Committee (NSTAC). Is there a solution for this situation?
Byline: 

V. Gurevich, Ph.D

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Going to the Bank

Financial buyers are snapping up power plants faster than at any time in history. The asset shift represents an interim step in a wholesale-market transformation.

A dam broke last year, releasing a wave that even now is spreading through the U.S. power industry. Deals that had been languishing on the auction block for months suddenly surged forward in 2004, and assets began changing ownership at a torrential pace. Understanding what this means for the power industry requires a long-term perspective on wholesale-market trends.
Byline: 

Michael T. Burr

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Reliability Wars

Power System Planning: Who gets paid (and how much) for backing up the system?

“Confining transmission projects to FTR payments is like confining generators to energy-only payments,” says Ed Krapels, the electric industry consultant from Boston who helped dream up the initial idea of the Neptune project. These words speak volumes on what’s happening in today’s power industry, and on what the ISOs and RTOs are trying to achieve, not only for merchant-grid projects but for merchant generation and system reliability.
Byline: 

Bruce W. Radford

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Mercury: Much Ado About Nothing?

How the Clean Air Mercury Rule will affect coal prices.

The Clean Air Mercury Rule impacts new and existing coal-fired electric generating plants through a market-based cap-and-trade program similar to the EPA’s highly successful Acid Rain Program. The first phase of the program in 2010 reduces mercury emissions to 38 tons. The second phase goes into action in 2018 with a final mercury emissions cap of 15 tons. The key question is: what extent will the new rule reduce coal’s dominance in the electric generation market?
Byline: 

Hans Daniels

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Building a Better Utility

Many of the obstacles and strategic issues that utilities face today are all too familiar. This time they must be solved with a different business model.

We overbuild, run short, then overbuild again. You'd think we'd learn, because when the forecasts aren't accurate, when overcapacity plagues the industry, companies fail. Can we get the forecasts right? Probably not. But we can plan for forecasts that will be wrong. They always are. And they will be until the system is redesigned to let prices clear the market.
Byline: 

Judith Warrick

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From Jet Set to Green Set

Corporate Environmental Programs: How can utility employees participate in greenhouse-gas reduction? Start with sustainable travel programs.

How can utility employees participate in greenhouse-gas reduction?

Byline: 

Bjorn Fischer

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People

Exelon appointed Tom Ridge and Dr. William C. Richardson to its board of directors. NiSource Inc. has restructured its leadership team. Hydro-Québec appointed André Caillé chairman of its board of directors and Thierry Vandal as president and CEO of the company. Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission (PUC) Chairman Wendell F. Holland recently was named president of the Mid-Atlantic Conference of Regulatory Utilities Commissioners. And others...

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Revenge of the ’70s

A guide to the galaxy of low growth, high interest rates, and the dark side of the Force.

Many executives are hoping to avoid a repeat of the 1970s, when first hit the big screen, and when inflation, nuclear cost overruns, and diminishing returns came calling in an economic climate that today's markets threaten to emulate.

Byline: 

Richard Stavros

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Upstate Uproar

Retail Choice: New York utilities cry “bait and switch,” but it’s not that simple.

If you take electric service from Orange & Rockland Utilities, the Catskills affiliate of Manhattan’s Con Ed, you can switch to a competitive retail supplier and score a 7 percent discount. But the discount lasts for two months. After that, if you haven’t signed a contract or taken some other action to lock in your discount, your ESCO can boost the commodity rate back to the old level—or even higher.
Byline: 

Bruce W. Radford

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