The Fortnightly 40 Financial Ratings
Which is the best energy company?
(September 2005) Top honors in our first annual financial ranking go to those staying with the basics and to those dealing with soaring commodity prices.
Law & Lawyers
Coal's Raw Deal
The bias in RTO markets, and how FERC might fix it.
RTO practice creates less risk and uncertainty over the nominal short-term wholesale price of power, but more risk and uncertainty over the long-term cost of transmission. That spells trouble for the coal-fired plant, sited far off at the mine mouth, needing long-haul transmission over a long-enough term to pay back the capital costs.
Restructuring Utility Leadership
How Exelon uses its human resources department as a strategic weapon.
What sort of leadership does today's utility need for the future? How does the culture need to change? Who should be hired from within the industry? Who should be hired from outside the industry? Exelon has sought to answer all of these questions, using human resources as a strategic advantage.
People
(September 2005) The Consolidated Edison Inc. board of directors elected Kevin Burke as a member. Great River Energy named Greg Ridderbusch vice president, business development and strategy. Millennium Pipeline named Dick Leehr as president. And others...
Wholesale Competition: The Big-Bang Effect
Consider the opening of the PJM market, and its effect on prices.
Wholesale competition is working, and the best evidence to date is the savings produced from the opening of the PJM market to competitive power generation from the Midwest. A real-time case study unfolded before our eyes in May and October 2004.
New Jersey’s BGS Auction: A Model for the Nation
Internet procurement may be used in other states.
Since 2002, the annual energy auctions created and administered by the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities have proven to be an innovative and successful way to meet our state's growing demand for electricity. We were the first state in the nation to procure most of its electric needs through an Internet-based auction. We will keep moving forward at a measured, prudent pace on hourly pricing.
Letter to the Editor
Chris King and Dan Delurey provide additional analysis for their recent paper, “Energy Efficiency and Demand Response: Twins, Siblings, or Cousins?” Fortnightly, March 2005.
The Energy Policy Act of 2005: Two Views
What the legislation says about a national strategy.
Now that the Energy Policy Act of 2005 has had a chance to sink in, a review of the bill's perks and pork is in order. Supporters of the 1,724-page piece of legislation laud it as a triumph of job-creating bipartisanship that attempts to shore up our energy supply, while detractors call it a gargantuan giveaway to a well-heeled industry.
A Welcome Truce in the Electricity Wars
Let's enjoy this brief period of diminished acrimony before implementation of this landmark law.
In a time of record high gasoline prices, war, and increasingly shared global climate concerns, it is lamentable that the Energy Policy Act of 2005 does so little to address these critical issues. Within the narrower context of policies primarily affecting the electric power industry, however, this is a much more significant piece of legislation, and it includes a few accomplishments bordering on the extraordinary.
A Low-Voltage Energy Bill
While a few provisions are worth embracing, most of its 1,724 pages represent a waste of good timber.
After four years of legislative trench warfare, contentious legal wrangling, and heated partisan rhetoric, President Bush finally got what he wanted—a really big energy bill. What he did not get, however, was an internally consistent "national energy strategy." Examination of the legislation reveals that its title—the Energy Policy Act of 2005—is less descriptive than the title popularized by Sen. John McCain: the No Lobbyist Left Behind Act of 2005.