Law & Lawyers

Perpetuating the California Dream

Leadership Lyceum Podcast: A conversation with Edison International CEO Pedro Pizarro

Edison International is the publicly traded holding company for Southern California Edison, the regulated utility, and a small array of non-regulated investments, plus Edison Energy. At $11.5 billion in annual revenue, and serving 15 million customers, the company is one of the largest utilities in the country.
Byline: 

Pedro Pizarro, with Tom Linquist

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Nuclear Innovation Is Not an Oxymoron

EPRI Podcast: Advanced Nuclear Looks Promising

Advanced nuclear technologies are closer to reality than you might think. To make a breakthrough, they'll need to provide significant advantages over current technologies, such as operating at low pressures and very high temperatures, and including inherent safety features.
Byline: 

Aimee Mills with Tina Taylor, Andrew Sowder, and Shane Johnson

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Surprising Energy Requirements of the Cannabis Industry

Part I: Implications for Utilities, Regulators

The legal cannabis industry in the U.S. is experiencing rapid growth. That growth and its commensurate energy demands are placing strains on some individual utilities and local grids. In Part I, we forecast electricity demands, analyze problems resulting from the immense energy requirements, and assess some potential implications for the cannabis industry and for utilities.
Byline: 

Roger Bezdek, Michael Harshfield, Sean Tegart, Ujjval Vyas

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Nuclear Energy's Critical Illness

Continue With Failed Treatments or Pursue the Cure?

Many supporters of nuclear technology have tried to correct significant challenges on assorted issues from the public, the media, and the scientific, regulatory and political sectors. But these efforts failed; they could not acknowledge the true illness and pursue the cure. This discussion focuses on what that illness is, how the industry has treated it, how to cure it, and one way to achieve a new political and regulatory environment that can save the patient.
Byline: 

Charles Pennington and Jeffry Siegel

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Cybersecurity, Part 2

Opportunities and Challenges for State Utility Regulators

Part I examined the evolving role of state regulators in addressing cybersecurity in the energy sector. Part II surveys best practices in various locations and recommends methods for developing regulatory procedures that will ensure the security of critical energy assets.
Byline: 

Commissioner Sherina Maye Edwards, Illinois Commerce Commission and Caitlin Shields, with Anne McKeon and Nakhia Crossley

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FERC, Renewables and Potatoes

Hidden Costs of Externalities

We continue to rush towards a renewable future without considering overall system design, the costs that various renewable scenarios impose on grid operation, and the operation of the grid with these scenarios. When the externalities of climate change and ocean acidification create an overwhelming mandate to move away from fossil fuels, we have no choice but to go forward. Shouldn't we try to pick the cheapest path?
Byline: 

Charles Bayless

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Risk and Utility Sector Cyber Attacks

Extreme Weather Events Give Insight to Regulators' Response

Over the past several years, Moody's Investors Service has published original research on cyber risk as a factor of growing importance to credit analysis. Lesley Ritter leads Moody's cyber risk research from the perspective of the utilities sector, and addresses some key questions.
Byline: 

Moody's Investors Service

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Investing in Innovation

Utilities Scaling-Up

Innovation success will require that utilities build distinct internal capabilities combined with parallel, directed future investment. However, they will supplement this activity simultaneously with external leverage through venture capitalists, start-ups, OEMs, partners and acquisitions. This formula is already being followed by a number of companies that have been leading the sector in formalizing innovation as a capability.
Byline: 

Tom Flaherty

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Helping Legislators Understand and Manage Utility Risks

Performance, Political, Customer Expectation, and Fiscal Risk

It is important to help legislators and regulators understand the utility's risk management decisions so that they can approve of the company's risk management strategies. Legislators and regulators are accustomed to thinking in terms of insuring against failures.
Byline: 

Kansas Representative Tom Sloan

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Why Are We Still Arguing About NEM?

Competitive Market Will Take Care of Next Burning Issue

I do not understand why we are still distracted by Net Energy Metering (NEM). It worked well when we had not-so-smart meters and were trying to encourage rooftop solar penetration. People in general and students of regulation in particular are left confused and can easily find some support for both sides. This results in conflicts and proposed compromises that keep the debate going at full tilt. Two things are missing or mostly overlooked in all this regulatory discourse.
Byline: 

Charles Cicchetti

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