EPA's Clean Power Plan
Charting a Path Forward
With respect to the Clean Power Plan, the question is whether EPA will address the major issues and reinforce its positions in advance of the anticipated legal challenges.
Law & Lawyers
How Reliable Is Your Microgrid?
An insurer’s perspective on risk drivers for distributed resources.
From an insurance perspective, what happens if an entire microgrid should fail to perform?
Piggybacking on the Grid
Why net energy metering is unfair and inefficient.
While customers may have reached a “net zero” threshold on energy, they are a large net negative on very expensive grid services.
Distribution Optimization: Ready for Takeoff
Part 2: Key choices on the way forward.
Integrated Distribution Planning (IDP) – much like its bulk power system cousin, Integrated Resource Planning (IRP) – provides a useful starting point for regulators and utilities to begin thinking about how to optimize the distribution system.
Open-Access Chronicles: The Backstory Behind Electric Restructuring
Part 2: The Art of the Deal
By 1997, Peco employed some 21 registered lobbyists in Pennsylvania, almost more than any other single company: to push through favorable bills to restructure the state’s electricity marketplace.
Is Nuclear Energy Still Viable?
Cheap natural gas is not just hurting coal. It’s doing the same to nuclear.
As the nation strives for cleaner air and less carbon emissions, nuclear – the most promising carbon-free power source – faces stiff competition from natural gas, which is cheap, abundant, and a lot easier to get permitted and built than a conventional reactor.
Climate, Carbon, Fuel, and the Future
The view from Oregon and Portland General Electric.
Fortnightly speaks with Jim Piro, president and CEO of Portland General Electric. Piro serves as a member of Oregon’s Global Warming Commission. He’s also active in the Electrification Coalition, a national group of business leaders advocating for policies that support electric vehicles.
Becoming Customer-Centric
Two utilities embrace technology and innovation.
Today the rise of customer-centric technology and innovation has created a whole new set of challenges. Advances have occurred in energy efficiency, demand response, distributed solar, energy storage, and electric vehicles, as well as smart grid infrastructure and analytics. Electric utilities have two basic choices: react to the agendas of the special interests or chart a path forward to create the most value for stakeholders and customers.
Understanding New York's 'Vision'
A roadmap to ‘REV’ and its plan for restructuring.
New York's far-reaching reform plan, called the Renewable Energy Vision, or “REV,” seeks to decentralize power supply by encouraging distributed resources, and a new regulatory entity will be created called a “Distributed System Platform,” or DSP.
People (August 2015)
Rick Riley was named group v.p. of customer service and operations for Entergy Arkansas Inc. and will replace Hugh McDonald as president and CEO when McDonald retires in 2016; Edison Electric Institute chose Nicholas K. "Nick" Akins, chairman, president and CEO of American Electric Power, and also elected four vice chairmen; Appointments by American Electric Power, Con Edison, Georgia Power, Dominion Resources, American Transmission Co. and Pacific Gas and Electric; and others...