Significant value waits to be unlocked through consolidation, but conventional approaches have been inadequate.
Can consolidation create sustainable long-term value, or will it prove seductive but, ultimately, disappointing to shareholders, employees, customers, and management alike?
Stage-by-stage advice from an M&A veteran.
Company leaders should expect to go through at least one company merger. If you’re in the energy industry, it’s time to begin pre-deal initiatives.
How to maintain continuous power supply while measuring for weak spots.
Failures in medium-voltage power cables and their components cause a large proportion of annual power service interruptions, especially in high-density urban areas. Locating and repairing weak areas in cables at an early stage can improve the reliability of the energy supply considerably. Partial discharge testing is a proven condition assessment/test methodology.
In search of the Holy Grail of utility risk management.
The search is on for the Holy Grail of risk management. Utilities are managing new risks, as more sophisticated systems and services become available.
How to sort out strategies and weather the storm.
Unless embraced as an integral part of the business strategy, risk management is nothing more than a bureaucratic exercise that lulls the management and directors into a false sense of security.
Robert Garvin, MAJ, TC, 3RD Corps Support Command: Serving here and seeing how poor the people of Iraq are after 30 years of a dictatorship is truly life changing. You would not believe the electricity challenges they face here. In a country of over 25 million people, Iraq has only about 5,000 MW of electricity at any given time.
Daniel Simon decided to investigate how much the extra heat of incandescent light bulbs over CFLs might cost a customer in air-conditioning cooling costs, compared to an analysis in “Squeezing BTUs From Light Bulbs.”
Can utilities simultaneously manage rising costs and pressing capital investment needs?
Does the utility industry have the financial strength sufficient to meet the combined challenges of: (1) sharply increasing and highly volatile fuel and purchased-power costs; (2) significant capital investment requirements; and (3) rising interest rates?
Market prices send investors clear signals to invest in the most efficient means for producing electricity.
Higher electricity prices have drawn sharp attention to the design of organized wholesale electricity markets—particularly to areas where residential customers’ rates will increase because multi-year rate freezes are ending. Some suggest changing the way that markets set wholesale electricity prices, or doing away with competitive markets entirely and returning to government regulation of prices. They say that the design of the markets exaggerates the effects of natural-gas price increases and unfairly rewards generators that use lower-cost fuels.
Some recent utility rate proceedings cast doubt on new ROE models and “risk adders.”
(November 2006) Our annual return on equity (ROE) survey broadly shows a continuing decline in the level of debate over issues specific to restructuring of the electric market. It also reveals a subtle shift back to investor requirements and overall business risks faced by regulated companies.
We are better off under restructured electric markets.
The most important action regulators can take to minimize consumer electricity costs is, and will continue to be, ensuring competitive wholesale markets, while demanding a rich mixture of products from the suppliers in these markets.