CEOs are Charged Up
But guiding their companies in times of change is a challenging task.
It’s a new era for utilities and their consumers. Today’s leaders are atop those economic, political and technological happenings.
Law & Lawyers
Open-Access Chronicles: The Backstory Behind Electric Restructuring
Part 1: Sharks, Whales and Minnows
In 1995, the pitched battle that played out between Peco and PPL became the functional equivalent of an advertising blitz in support of electricity restructuring, and planted the seeds for Enron to get involved in utility regulation.
Distribution Optimization: Ready for Takeoff
Part 1: How markets today are out of sync.
The time has come to consider options for optimizing distributed energy resources, with the intent of supporting a least-cost, reliable, and clean system that delivers more choice and control for customers.
Grid Reform to Date
How the feds opened the supply side.
The sheer scale of growth put a ‘stake through the heart’ of the old view.
Estimating the Longevity of Commercial Nuclear Reactors
A demographic analysis of plants in the U.S.
The question of the life span of these resources is highly pertinent, given efforts to subsidize nuclear units in New York and Illinois. Are these subsidies for five years or 30 years? There is little research on the life expectancy of the average commercial reactor.
Washington Can't Save Utilities from the Solar Onslaught
If energy storage succeeds, it’s a new battlefield.
Solar rooftop installations are fraying the very fabric of the utilities and their business models and, for the first time in a long time, the powerful lobby that is EEI cannot help.
Digest (June 2015)
Duke Energy completed the sale of its non-regulated Midwest Commercial Generation Business to Dynegy for $2.8 billion; Sempra U.S. Gas & Power acquired the Black Oak Getty wind project in Minnesota from Geronimo Energy; Toshiba received an order to supply two sets of 175-MW steam turbine and generators in Chihuahua, Mexico; Alstom Grid was awarded a $23 million contract to supply the first 500 kV substation a substation near Bogota, Colombia; SunEdison agreed to construct and install three solar power plants in southern Utah with a total capacity of 262 MW; Mississippi Power plans to build utility-scale solar farms with a combined capacity represent the largest solar installation in the state; Phoenix Energy's joint venture, North Fork Community Power's project was awarded a $4.9 million grant to construct one of the first forest-sourced biomass gasification plants; Westinghouse Electric will increase the capacity of the cooling system at the Central Interim Storage Facility for Spent Nuclear Fuel (Clab) located in Sweden.
Transactions (June 2015)
Duke Energy completed the sale of its non-regulated Midwest Commercial Generation Business to Dynegy for $2.8 billion; Sempra U.S. Gas & Power acquired the Black Oak Getty wind project in Minnesota from Geronimo Energy; Dominion acquired a 20-MW solar facility in California from E.ON North America; Plus debt offerings from Alabama Power, CONSOL Energy and Appalachian Power.
Utilities Cutting Cord to Coal
It’s not personal. It’s just business.
With coal’s troubles piling up, so too are stories about the industry’s “bleak” future in the United States – a casualty of cheap natural gas, thinning coal seams, and the pursuit of lower-carbon alternatives. Just as conspicuous: utilities, which have long allied themselves with the coal developers, are retiring their older coal units in droves.
People (July 2015)
OGE Energy chairman and CEO Pete Delaney stepped down from the CEO position to become the interim CEO of Enable Midstream Partners. In response, OGE named current president Sean Trauschke, as CEO. PJM Interconnection elected Terry Blackwell to the PJM board. Chesapeake Utilities appointed John R. Schimkaitis to serve as chairman of the board. Paul D. Koonce adds the role of president-Dominion Virginia Power to his responsibilities. And others...