Peek at 2018
Great Year for Energy and Environment
There’s a premium on predictions, but the exception could be energy priorities in 2018.
Law & Lawyers
The Smart Thermostat
Buying One and Using One
Utilities can serve as a resource on which smart thermostats to buy and how to use them.
Top Three Tax Reform Changes Impacting Utilities
Widespread Impacts
Certain provisions of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act are expected to have widespread impacts on the industry.
Picture Energy: NYPA Opening of Integrated Smart Operations Center
The New York Power Authority took a big step on December 11 when it opened its Integrated Smart Operations Center (ISOC). Here is how NYPA CEO Gil Quiniones described ISOC at the recent gridConnext 2017 event:
“With this, we are digitizing, working with GE hand-in-hand with their Predix platform. We are digitizing and creating digital twins of our power plants, our substations and transmission systems, to really increase the operational efficiencies, reliability, and availability. And to optimize our capital and O&M spend.”
Conversation Cannot Be Markets vs. Non-Markets
Pendulum Swings Again
While open markets were the objective of the 1990s, the pendulum is swinging again.
Videos: gridConnext 2017
Videos
Here are videos from the event with Gil Quiniones, Spencer Gray, Steve Martin and Jack Betkoski.
Storms, Rates, Insurance
Entire Economy Pays Price
This past year three hurricanes affected an area which encompassed about eight percent of the U.S. population. According to an article by Joel Achenbach in The Washington Post, dated November 19, 2017, “Disaster claims soar in year of calamities: Federal resources stretched as applications for aid rise tenfold,” these three storms contributed to a year of “record setting disasters.”
4.7 million Americans registered for FEMA aid compared to four hundred eighty thousand in 2016, and an average of a hundred and eighty thousand for the previous three years.
Picture Energy: FERC Chair Chatterjee at Natural Gas Roundtable
It was a packed house. The FERC Chair, now Commissioner Neil Chatterjee, was the guest speaker at the Natural Gas Roundtable’s November 30 luncheon.
He started by saying he would not discuss the Energy Secretary’s grid resiliency pricing NOPR. And with a wry smile, invited anyone present to leave if that’s the only reason they had come.
Ten Predictions for 2018
NOPR Over and Over. Bills Lower and Lower.
Energy storage will advance, electrification will pick up, allowed rates of return will be reconsidered.
Pic of the Month: Texas Markets Roundtable
Before the holidays, Public Utilities Fortnightly held a roundtable in Houston with four thought leaders on the unique Texas wholesale and retail markets. For a couple of hours former FERC Chair Pat Wood, Centerpoint SVP Kenny Mercado, Direct Energy EVP Jim Steffes and Rice University Professor Ken Medlock had a lively discussion spurred on by PUF’s Editor-in-Chief.