Next-Gen Nuclear
Tomorrow’s options for low-carbon baseload generation.
The nuclear renaissance might be postponed, but technologies continue advancing. The next generation of plants will apply innovation for safety, efficiency, and modularity.
Law & Lawyers
Why Outage Management Must Change
Smart grid advancements call for a new approach to restoration.
The next-generation smart grid system must perform SCADA, DMS, and OMS functions using a single, common representation of the distribution network.
Digest
Solar Reserve commissions 110-MW solar thermal plant with molten-salt heat storage; Minnesota Power orders 64 3-MW wind turbines from Siemens; Alstom wins contract to supply 6-MW offshore wind turbines; Itron announces subscription-based service offering; plus announcements and contracts involving SunEdison, Lockheed Martin, Washington Gas Energy Systems, and others.
Unwinding the Death Spiral
Rooftop solar, net metering, and the perils of utilityspeak.
The Sierra Club accuses utilities of trying to snuff out rooftop solar. Attorney Donald Sipe recommends RTO/ISO markets for natural gas.
Performance is What Counts
ISO New England’s capacity market proposal will bring reliability benefits to the region.
ISO New England CEO Gordon van Welie rebuts implications in a Fortnightly column about the ISO’s “Pay for Performance” capacity market proposal.
People (May 2014)
PSEG names Tamara Linde as executive v.p. and general counsel upon Lon Bouknight’s retirement; NYISO elects Daniel B. More, formerly of Morgan Stanley, to its board of directors; Edison International announces board member France Cordova to resign in order to accept appointment by President Obama to serve as director of National Science Foundation.
Big Wind in the Big Oil State
ERCOT readies for renewable market integration.
ERCOT readies to integrate a large future influx of wind generation and finds need for new, more flexible resources to provide ancillary services – preferably a zero-to-five-minute ramping resource which, unfortunately, does not correspond to any currently existing technology or market product.
Future Shock
ERCOT load growth: patterns, possibilities, and second thoughts.
Data from ERCOT indicates that energy intensity is falling markedly, as measured in terms of kWh usage per number of nonfarm jobs. That suggests much less future load growth, yet EIA data based on nationwide scenarios do not seem to agree.
In the Crosshairs
Protecting substations and transformers after the PG&E Metcalf attack.
The latest fallout from the April 2013 Metcalf incident: the unprecedented assault with high-powered rifles on PG&E’s Metcalf substation, in Silicon Valley, which disabled 17 of 20 large transformers.
Working at the Edge of the Grid
How to find value in distributed energy resources.
Distributed resources create a new multi-directional power grid, achieving the sort of scale-driven cost levels and ease of installation that portend of future mass deployment.