Electricity at War
Rumors tell of a cyber attack on the power grid.
Electricity in war today is akin to the railroads, dating from the Civil War: a high-value target. Every line of code is a land mine, waiting for hackers to detonate.
Law & Lawyers
People (November 2015)
Steven D. Davis was elected to succeed Jessie J. Knight, Jr. as executive v.p. of external affairs and corporate strategy for Sempra Energy. Georgia Power named Dr. Mark Berry as v.p. of environmental affairs. FirstEnergy made management changes in customer service and utility operations areas of the company. GE appointed Stephan Reimelt as president and CEO of GE's power conversion business. Atlantic Power named Joseph E. Cofelice as executive v.p. of commercial development. The New York Independent System Operator (NYISO) named Bradley C. Jones as president and CEO. Entergy elected Philip L. Frederickson to its board of directors. And others...
Microgrids: Where's the Beef?
Integration beats islanding, anyway you slice it.
A microgrid is a throwback. It’s anathema to what we know about economies of scale. Integration is what maximizes the ability of least-cost resources to reach load. By interfering with least-cost dispatch, microgrids can only raise energy costs.
Growth Through Productivity
Enterprise Management: Taking a wider view of asset management.
Utility executives today see few choices if they wish to achieve growth. Better scheduling can improve overall productivity by 10-15 percent, offering the potential for growth. Yet it is not sufficient simply to focus narrowly on work execution in the field.
Equity Returns: ‘Allowed’ vs. Earned
Understanding how PUC rate case findings differ from a utility’s financial reports.
(November 2015) Setting an allowed return on equity has consistently proven to be the most contentious and subjective part of a rate case proceeding.
Second Winner of PUF Cross-Examination Award
We have our second winner of the PUF Cross-Examination Award. The award goes to media and other statements that are so misleading they compel us to cross-examine.
Readers may recall the first winner. It was a July 5th article of the New York Times. The article, "Piles of Dirty Secrets Behind a Model 'Clean Coal' Project," implied a utility project in Mississippi has driven electric rates to unbearable levels.
PPI for Generation, Transmission, Distribution Lowest in 3 Years
Electricity’s Producer Price Index up just 3.7% from August 2004, while overall Consumer Price Index up 9.9%
Late last week, the feds dumped a wealth of August electric price data on our desk. This week, we’re filling you in, on what it all means for utility policy and regulation.
There’s too much to fit in a single column. See yesterday’s column for Consumer Price Index trends in residential electric rates, by region. Here today is another taste. To get the full story, catch all the columns this week.
You Must Read 'Last Days of Night'
Foundation story for our industry, with intrigues of Edison, Westinghouse, Tesla, Morgan and Bell
“Last Days of Night” is a historical novel about the war of currents between Thomas Edison and George Westinghouse, along with Nikola Tesla, J.P. Morgan and Alexander Graham Bell.
Everybody's an Expert on Rate of Return
FERC’s treatment of rate of return for pipelines and electric transmission lines has been in the news recently. This reminded me of the plight of the very high-visibility and controversial rate-of-return and cost-of-capital witness.
This poor expert has the dubious distinction of presenting testimony on a subject in which everyone, in my decades of experience in public utility rate cases, has an opinion.
I am not kidding as I mean everyone.
Electric Vehicles: The race is on!
The electric power industry is not new to the desire to have electric cars added to the grid.
A hundred years ago, legendary automobile manufacturer Henry Ford and equally legendary inventor and electric power industry founder Thomas Edison, two friends who fished and camped together in late life, considered manufacturing electric cars. They even developed a prototype jointly.
Check out this interview with Ford in the New York Times of January 11, 1914: