The Innovator's Dilemma
Assessing the risks and rewards of distributed energy strategies.
To embrace change or fight it? The choice to either act or wait and see is fraught with complexity.
coal
Power Breakfast
Fortnightly’s Executive Roundtable considers industry options and risks.
Fortnightly recently convened a group of senior operations executives from a variety of companies to discuss current trends in the U.S. power industry. Their comments reflect a mixed outlook on the industry’s transitionary changes.
Dealing With the Duck
Designing markets to accommodate variable resources.
Growth in variable resources creates an increasing need for demand response and fast-ramping generation. The right market design can bring both.
Five Years Later
Wall Street is back in business. What’s next for utility finance?
When Lehman Brothers went bankrupt in September 2008, it marked the beginning of a financial crisis. By most accounts, the utility industry has been a picture of stability through tumultuous times. The view from Wall Street remains bullish – despite some reasons for concern.
Energiewende
Nuclear fear and Germany’s headlong plunge into renewable energy.
On a recent trip to Germany to study the country’s energy policy, the phrase “energy transition,” or “energiewende” as the Germans say, was on everyone’s mind.
Energy Disconnect
Misguided policies threaten resource adequacy.
Resource planning is grinding to a halt. From EPA regulations to irrational markets, today’s policy missteps threaten tomorrow’s reliability.
EnviraCarbon Patents Clean Biomass Technology to Replace Coal
Submitted by aburr on Wed, 2013-07-17 13:12EnviraCarbon (ECI) commercialized a patented technology which molecularly alters renewable biomass feedstock into EnvirAnized Biofuel (EBF), a product that looks, transports, stores, pulverizes and burns like coal, but doesn’t pollute. EBF can be used interchangeably with coal or biomass and contains negligible amounts of sulfur and non-detectable levels of mercury, arsenic, and lead which are toxic elements in coal. EBF is also, by most standards, at or near carbon neutral.
Reducing Rate Shocks
Original-cost ratemaking doesn’t suit the challenges facing utilities today.
Levelized rates can serve customers’ interests, while also accelerating capital investment and providing an economic stimulus to the economy.
Industry in Transition
Utility CEOs face disruptive trends.
Top executives at AEP, the California ISO, and El Paso Electric address key challenges and opportunities.
Congestion on Trial
PJM and the crisis over FTR underfunding.
PJM’s latest crisis—the underfunding of financial transmission rights that we’ve seen over the last few years—pushes regulators right to the edge. How far do they trust wholesale power markets? Do they accept the idea, proven by a famous economist, that freely traded financial instruments can work just as well—better even—than firm, physical contract rights?
In PJM’s case, we are told, the problem occurs when too much negative congestion shows up in real-time balancing. But if congestion is bad, shouldn’t negative congestion be good?