Coca-Cola

Investor Sequester

State complaints over FERC-granted equity returns could dry up funding for transmission expansion.

Perhaps sensing the weight of evidence allayed against them, transmission owners have thrown caution to the wind by openly and admittedly submitting an ROE analysis that doesn’t comport with FERC precedent.

Vendor Neutral

(August 2011) Shaw Group completes 500 MW combined cycle plant; Pattern Energy begins building Spring Valley wind farm; AEP, Duke and TVA team up on interstate transmission line; AEP and MidAmerican contract for Texas transmission projects; Alliant contracts Open Systems International for volt-VAR control system; Alstom buys into AWS Ocean Energy; Siemens acquires shares in PV manufacturer Semprius; Lockheed Martin introduces cyber security system; plus contracts and announcements involving Elster, Itron, Suzlon, Solon, Sensus, Westinghouse Electric, Morgan Lewis and others.

The Late Great Gas Utility

By abandoning R&D and marketing, the gas industry may have sealed its own fate.

Gas producers and utilities have all but abandoned R&D and marketing. Is it too late to reverse the death spiral, or can the industry learn from other check-off marketing successes?

Perspective

New realities demand new direction from utilities.

Perspective

New realities demand new direction from utilities.

 

Business & Money

A top investor explains what it would take for utilities to be included in one of the best-performing funds in the U.S.

Measuring Up to Jensen

 

 

A top investor explains what it would take for utilities to be included in one of the best-performing funds in the U.S.

Passing the standards for inclusion in the $1 billion plus Jensen Portfolio Fund is like being crowned the best-of-the-best in a given industry, analysts say.

Turning Capital to Wealth: A Ranking of U. S. Utilities

An alternative measure of performance - not based on dividends, earnings growth or P/E ratios.

How to place a value on a utility company? That is the question.

The traditional models no longer work very well. Dividend discount models will not work well if utilities cut dividends and buy back stock to return capital to the shareholders. Earnings growth offers no reliable performance gauge either, as utilities acquire or divest large amounts of capital. Restructuring charges often become necessary to shift resources to their best use.

People

Ronald L. Adams, an executive from Transcontinental Gas Pipeline, was named president of CNG Transmission Corp. He replaces L.J. Timms, Jr., who retired.

Lee Elder was hired by GE Nuclear Energy as manager of market development. Elder was g.m. of nuclear marketing and technology for Black & Veatch and started a joint venture between the two companies to service boiling water reactors.

The Oklahoma Corporation Commission has hired Richard L. Heck, a former U.S.

The Search for Consumer Content in Energy Marketing and Retailing

The battle to control profit margin really boils down to a battle for the customer premises, where the serious money resides.The gas and electric industries in the United States control about $900 billion in assets (production, logistical, merchant). They employ these assets to serve about 150 million customers (counted separately for gas and electric), but they manage to offer only two rudimentary products (em molecules and electrons (em and at only two levels of service: firm (supposedly) and interruptible (obviously).