Will eco-power survive the next five years?
"If you build it they will come" has not proven to be applicable for green-power programs. Utilities have to build their programs in the right way, with the right rewards and incentives—then the customers will come. If utilities do not do this, then the effort to expand renewable energy markets will suffer a great setback, one from which it will take many years to recover.
Chief financial officers discuss new strategies and the possibility of further convergence inside and outside the energy industry.
A whole new cast of characters is expected to enter the energy industry—overseas ventures, telecom firms, insurance companies, and financial-services groups. But even as the future seems to hold boundless opportunity, utility executives and industry experts continue to disagree on what sort of consolidation is right.
By opening the field to far-flung deals, PUHCA’s repeal changes the merger game.
The repeal of the 1935 Public Utility Holding Company Act has attracted a surprising amount of attention in the business and consumer press. But while some analysts predict a wave of utility M&A activity, others are more sanguine about the change.
Warren L. Robinson, Executive VP and CFO, MDU Resources
Utility stocks have outperformed the broader market. Can the industry deliver a show-stopping second act?
The utility sector has been one of the best performing sectors in the equity capital markets for more than two years. In many respects, this has been a case of the rising tide lifting all ships.
Stephen I. Chazen, Senior Executive VP and CFO, Occidental Petroleum
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.
John R. Biggar, Executive VP and CFO, PPL Corp.
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.
Geoffrey S. Chatas, Executive VP and CFO, Progress Energy