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Law & Lawyers

Threat Level Red

Integrating weather and GIS data for more accurate threat assessments.

Weather and GIS are being combined in new ways to provide better storm threat assessments - helping utilities create increasingly effective battle plans to defend against approaching storms.
Byline: 

Matt Zimmerman and Don Leick

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Coal After MATS

A strategy for completely removing mercury from environmental emissions.

Coal-fired power plants subject to EPA’s MATS rule can try a biological treatment option to remove mercury emissions from the environment.
Byline: 

Mike Burton, Scott Hurst, Richard Squire, and Jay Wiedemann

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Digest (August 2014)

Florida Power & Light Company partners with PetroQuest Energy to develop natural gas production wells in southeastern Oklahoma; First Solar receives financing approval to build a 141-MW solar power plant in Chile; DTE Energy will deploy Tollgrade’s LightHouse MV smart grid sensors and predictive grid analytics platform within its distribution network in Detroit; US DOE chooses Abengoa, together with the National Renewable Energy Laboratory and the Colorado School of Mines, to develop a new solar storage technology for thermoelectric plants.
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People (August 2014)

Chairmen were elected to the Edison Electric Institute, including Theodore Craver (Edison International), Nicholas Akins (American Electric Power) and Thomas Fanning (Southern Co.); ISO New England changed its wholesale market management; Bechtel’s nuclear business line president, Greg Ashley, was elected to the Nuclear Energy Institute’s board of directors and executive committee. And others...
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Transactions (August 2014)

Wisconsin Energy to acquire Integrys in a transaction valued at $9.1 billion; Dominion to acquire the CID Solar Project from EDF Renewable Energy; Landis+Gyr to acquire GRIDiant Corp.; PPL Corporation and Riverstone Holdings LLC to merge merchant power generation businesses into a new company Talen Energy Corporation; plus debt offerings totaling $1.5 billion.

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Utility Capital in the Twenty-First Century

What FERC might learn from Thomas Piketty and his best-selling book on wealth and income.

Thomas Piketty’s best-selling book, “Capital in the Twenty-First Century,” shows why utility transmission owners should not enjoy excessive returns.
Byline: 

David E. Pomper

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Curing the Death Spiral

Seeking a rate design that recovers costs fairly from customers with rooftop solar.

Load research data shows how utilities can levy a demand charge to recover costs fairly from residential customers with rooftop solar.
Byline: 

Mark Lively and Lorraine Cifuentes

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Rooftop Parity

Solar for Everyone, including Utilities

An independent system operator for the distribution network could open more opportunities for distributed energy resources, including rooftop solar.
Byline: 

James Tong and Jon Wellinghoff

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Smart by Default

Time-varying rates from the get-go – not just by opt-in.

Default enrollment for time-varying rates, with an opt-out, will reduce peak demand and far more than a default flat rate with a TVR opt-in.
Byline: 

Ahmad Faruqui, Ryan Hledik, and Neil Lessem

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