Critics say its new budget and business plan could simply duplicate the work of RTOs.
FERC granted formal certification to NERC as the nation’s sole ERO and reliability czar, making it inevitable that NERC would delegate the job of regional enforcement to its various regional reliability councils, already constituted. To understand why FERC acted as it did, turn back the clock nearly a decade.
Can utilities simultaneously manage rising costs and pressing capital investment needs?
Does the utility industry have the financial strength sufficient to meet the combined challenges of: (1) sharply increasing and highly volatile fuel and purchased-power costs; (2) significant capital investment requirements; and (3) rising interest rates?
Exclusive interviews with the CEOs of five regional transmission systems.
Exclusive interviews with CEOs at five regional independent transmission system operators: Phil Harris, at PJM; Gordon van Welie, at ISO New England; Yakout Monsour, at the California ISO; Graham Edwards, at MISO; and Mark Lynch, at the New York ISO.
Beware even the best of attempts at apportioning grid rights and costs.
Several recent complaints involving PJM and now at FERC pose fundamental questions on how regulators and grid operators should attempt to price and allocate grid rights and costs. Is the transmission network a public asset, with costs that must be apportioned on principles of equity? Or, rather, is transmission an instrument of commerce, to be priced so as to maximize trade?
America’s energy competition laboratory prepares to build.
The ERCOT region remains a living example of how to make a successful transition to restructured wholesale and retail markets for electricity. At the same time, the market continues to witness some significant developments. Sights are turning from recovery to the next stage of the power business cycle: The Buildup.
A rash of rate hikes around the country could have utilities facing a public-relations disaster.
Constellation Energy CEO Mayo Shattuck has complained that he and the utility have unfairly been demonized in the public and in the press. In one interview with a Maryland paper, Shattuck showed distress over the verbal abuse his executives had received from angry ratepayers. And who can blame him?
By trying to placate regulated states—letting utilities “opt out” from its capacity market—PJM finds its RPM idea under fire.
While the PJM Interconnection has made no major changes to its prototype capacity market since it proposed the idea a year ago in August, and though it has won a tacit OK from federal regulators for many of the plan’s key elements, don’t expect to see a slam dunk when the time comes for a final review of the controversial idea, known as the Reliability Pricing Model.
Cal-ISO files a new market design, but has it traded efficiency for software?
Eyeing a launch date of November 2007, Cal-ISO at last has come forward with plans for revamping its widely disparaged wholesale market design. The formal proposal, known as the MRTU (Market Redesign and Technology Upgrade), was filed this past February at FERC.
The ability to provide reliable capacity is becoming both riskier and more costly to society and investors alike.
The ability to provide reliable capacity is becoming both riskier and more costly to society and investors alike.
History teaches us that the most successful American businesses emerge from the crucible of competition.
Important challenges still confront the development of a coherent strategy to create an efficient modern transmission system. Assuming FERC and Congress are earnest about creating a 21st century grid, new ideas, projects, and technologies need to emerge.