Regulated Utilities: Reinventing the Classic Business Strategy
Opportunities and limitations of five top strategies.
How can regulated utilities create value? Each of five key options present their own risks. Which way should management go?
Law & Lawyers
Day of Decision for FERC
How will the commission answer Congress’ call for energy market transparency?
How will the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission answer Congress’ call for energy market transparency? Will it rest on its laurels, or move forward to restore confidence in wholesale energy markets?
Demand-Response and Smart-Meter Provisions: Breakthrough or Non-Event?
Regulators and Utilities: The Ball’s in Your Court
Are the smart-metering provisions of EPACT 2005 a good thing? The answer, like most things in life, is, “It depends.” Looked at holistically, the opportunity is great. Viewed incrementally, it’s empty words on paper. It’s up to regulators and utilities to take the initiative.
The Economics of Low-Head Dams
How they can generate green energy and improve a municipality’s bottom line.
Federal incentive payment of 1.8 cents/kWh for the generation of renewable energy—part of The Energy Policy Act of 2005—increases the economic attractiveness of many potential hydro sites, and, as a consequence, could revive the building of low-head dams.
The Capacity Market Enigma
Why haven’t reliability markets developed?
Capacity and energy, although related, are not identical products. If we are to continue to rely on competitive market forces to provide new generation supplies, we need separate, long-term, installed capacity markets.
Evolving Risks in the LNG Supply Chain
Some supplies may not make it to U.S. ports.
With the dramatic growth of the liquefied natural gas (LNG) trade worldwide and increased dependence on LNG as the gas fuel of the future, gas-utility companies at the end of the chain need to question whether the LNG chains are still safe, reliable, and well managed. But before diving in to some of the risks, it should be pointed out that historically LNG chains have been safe.
Electric Transmission: Building the Next Interstate System
We must efficiently deliver wholesale power within competitive regional markets.
When President Eisenhower was growing up in Kansas, he saw America’s byways and back roads develop to meet point-to-point needs, eventually forming a loosely connected national interstate highway network. The U.S. electric transmission system has similar roots, and it needs a similar vision to meet the needs of the 21st century.
Sunset on Grid West
RTOs in the region continue to struggle.
Efforts to develop more RTOs in the West came to a near standstill again after talks last year among key players Bonneville Power Administration (BPA), Grid West, and the Transmission Improvements Group collapsed over BPA’s convergence proposal. The end of talks is one more failure in a long line of failures to find consensus on an RTO approach in the West. Grid West is attempting to reorganize following BPA’s withdrawal, but its fate is indeterminate. Key issues are funding for continued development and achieving agreements with BPA and other transmission providers in the region.
People
(January 2006) Kathleen Chagnon joined Saul Ewing LLP as a partner in its business department. Sierra Pacific Resources announced that Donald D. Snyder was elected to its board of directors. Avista Corp. named Linda M. Jones director of corporate communications. Allegheny Energy Inc. named Loyd (Aldie) Warnock vice president, external affairs. And others...
NERC Knows Best?
FERC this year must select a reliability czar. But the obvious choice could prove less than ideal.
NERC up until now has been, in its own words, “a self regulatory organization, relying on reciprocity, peer pressure, and the mutual self-interest of all those involved in the electric system.” Nevertheless, can this tradition of kind, gentle, and voluntary consensus-building stand NERC in good stead as it seeks to transform itself in to a steel-fisted czar that would enforce mandatory standards?