Alliant’s 11th-hour deal to sell $783 million in transmission wires faces ex-post legal challenge
(February 2008) Alliant subsidiary Interstate Power & Light (IP&L) completed a $783 million deal to sell 6,800 miles of electric transmission assets to an affiliate of ITC Holdings Corp. The same day, Alliant issued guidance saying its 2008 earnings likely would increase by between 3 and 13 cents a share, driven partly by proceeds from the IP&L asset sale.
Utility infrastructure projects face high costs, labor shortages and global competition for resources.
A huge backlog exists for utility infrastructure projects. Major players in the construction industry—ABB, Black & Veatch, Siemens, The Shaw Group and WorleyParsons—discuss the trends, both good and bad, and how they are getting the job done on badly needed projects.
Greenhouse-gas regulation will impose vastly greater compliance difficulties than did the Acid Rain program.
Greenhouse gas (GHG) regulation picks up where Acid Rain legislation left off, but affects far more sources and pollutants. Utility compliance programs face major uncertainties.
RTO markets aren’t living up to the promise of cheaper power.
Regional Transmission Organizations (RTOs) have not performed as well as open wholesale markets over the past decade. RTO advocates want governmental intervention, but the best answer may be requiring RTOs to file system lambdas.
The latest ‘incremental’ policy changes might realign utility financial incentives.
Back in 1978, Congress passed an energy bill, the National Energy Act, including an obscure provision that seemed like an incremental tweak to U.S. energy policy. But eventually, that incremental tweak—the Public Utility Regulatory Policies Act (PURPA)—smashed through the gates of the vertically integrated utility construct. PURPA introduced competition into wholesale power markets in a way that fundamentally changed the U.S. utility industry.
The Interstate Natural Gas Association named Richard R. Hoffmann executive director of the The INGAA Foundation. E. Kevin Bethel joined Sierra Pacific Resources as chief accounting officer. Dominion East Ohio promoted Bruce C. Klink to president. American Electric Power announced several changes. And others...
DOE’s move to ‘restructure’ FutureGen clears the way for more rational R&D.
When President Bush announced the FutureGen initiative halfway through his first term, industry veterans instinctively understood its purpose. Nominally a public-private partnership to build a “zero-emissions” coal-fired power plant, FutureGen stood as a symbol for the administration’s climate-change strategy. It helped the government argue mandatory carbon constraints were unnecessary, because America will develop more green technology than any other country in the world.
Low-carbon strategies are yielding rewards for shareholders.
Low-carbon and “green” strategies have begun delivering returns for utility shareholders. Whether a company ultimately wins or loses depends on how markets are pricing the risks of possible carbon-control regimes.
Why developers today are often kept waiting to get projects ok’d to connect to the grid.
Late last year FERC learned that the Midwest regional grid likely would require at least 40 years — until 2050 — simply to clear its backlog of proposed gen projects awaiting a completed interconnection agreement to certify their compatibility with the interstate power grid. But grid engineers would meet that date only by shortening the process and studying multiple projects simultaneously in clusters. To apply the process literally, studying one project at a time, as envisioned by current rules, the Midwest reportedly would need 300-plus years to clear its project queue.
Turbulent politics and market trends cloud prospects for coal-fired power.
Coal faces more uncertainty than any other base-load generating source. Two new factors, hitherto irrelevant to the U.S. industry, will shape future generation investment—imports of liquefied natural gas (LNG) and greenhouse-gas (GHG) restrictions. Taken together, they point to a bleak future for coal unless its technology advances dramatically … or a political consensus fails to emerge.