Breaking the Gridlock
A proposal to remove the bottlenecks on grid investment.
The lack of transmission investment transcends the usual culprits, pointing to a serious flaw in market structure.
CAP
Transcos Reborn
Recent attrition raises the question: Consolidation or death spiral?
Despite some setbacks, the transco business might be ready to turn the corner toward a new phase of growth. Will the remaining barriers roll away and allow the industry to grow beyond three companies?
Reliability Wars
Power System Planning: Who gets paid (and how much) for backing up the system?
“Confining transmission projects to FTR payments is like confining generators to energy-only payments,” says Ed Krapels, the electric industry consultant from Boston who helped dream up the initial idea of the Neptune project. These words speak volumes on what’s happening in today’s power industry, and on what the ISOs and RTOs are trying to achieve, not only for merchant-grid projects but for merchant generation and system reliability.
The EPA Speaks Out: The Clean Air Interstate Rule Explained
The Environmental Protection Agency reviews how the multi-pollutant control concept is to work.
Currently, 132 areas do not meet the new National Ambient Air Quality Standards for fine particles or ozone, affecting some 160 million people, or 57 percent of the U.S. population. What efforts are under way by the EPA to bring these areas into compliance?
Capacity Markets: A Bridge to Recovery?
A review of the ongoing evolution of market design.
While it appears that capacity markets are here to stay, there is little consensus regarding the best design. Markets in the United States are in a state of flux, with debate raging over many different capacity market pricing schemes. While the winning recipe has yet to be selected, it is likely that participants in certain markets will witness significant changes.
Exelon's Epic End Game
Electric M&A: The merger with PSE&G may herald a new industry structure, squarely at odds with regional markets.
The marriage between Exelon and PSEG would create the largest electric utility in the United States. The policy implications could loom even larger, however. Standing at risk is nothing less than FERC’s entire regulatory regime for approval of mergers and market-based rates.
Commission Watch
What everybody missed in setting up the regional grids.
Commission Watch
What everybody missed in setting up the regional grids.
While the electric utility industry has largely agreed on what elements to include in a standard market design (SMD) to govern wholesale power trading in a given region, recent experience shows that the regulators from time to time have overlooked a number of things.
Greenhouse Gas Emissions: Changing U.S. Climate
The states are getting into the act on greenhouse emissions, and the power industry is getting more proactive. What policy measures are appropriate?
Proponents of mandatory carbon limits – though increasing in number – still constitute a minority within the utility industry. Most utilities prefer voluntary greenhouse-gas (GHG) emissions reductions, or take the view that CO2 should not be considered a pollutant at all.
LICAP and Its Lessons: A Kink in the Curve
Doubts intensify over New England’s radical new market for electric capacity.
What began nearly two years ago as a simple request by power producers to boost their chances for recovering fixed costs for several power plants in Connecticut has mushroomed into the single most complicated case now pending before FERC.
Changing Capital Structures for Changing Times
The utilities industry is in need of more equity.
Value Line projects that total capital for electric utilities will increase about 12 percent during the next several years, while common equity will increase nearly 28 percent. Similarly, natural gas distribution company total capital is projected to increase about 10 percent, and common equity close to 15 percent. For both industries, the median common equity ratio in the near-term future for companies with investment-grade rated subsidiaries is in the range of 51 to 52 percent. For utilities, higher equity ratios are desirable for several reasons.