A Call for Consolidation
Electric utility mergers loom as the next step in restructuring.
The electric utility industry is inefficient: the firms are too small, lacking economies of scale achievable through mergers and acquisitions.
Law & Lawyers
Hedging Your Bet on Cheap Gas
Portfolio theory points to energy efficiency as invaluable in resource planning.
Overlooked in planning, and undervalued by today’s low natural gas prices, energy efficiency offers a valuable hedge against fuel price volatility.
Wireless Sensor Technology
Equipment health monitoring for the modern utility.
Wireless sensors open new, novel applications for utilities, replacing expensive cabling network options to sense incipient equipment failures.
Digest (July 2014)
Austin Energy awards Recurrent Energy a contract for Texas' largest solar power plant; Indianapolis Power & Light receives approval from IURC to invest $600 million in gas turbine power station; Tucson Electric Power to purchase solar power from Avalon Solar Project; Xcel Energy and SunPower sign a PPA for a 50-MW solar plant in Colorado; American Electric Power plans to replace existing wire on transmission line running from Ohio to West Virginia; Midcontinent ISO amends its tariff to allow for short-term variations in net load requirements; FERC approves ISO New England's "Pay-for-Performance" plan.
Rent the Rooftop
A new front opens in the solar wars.
Has Arizona Public Service found a way to cheat the death spiral?
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...
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.
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.
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.
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.