Operations & Maintenance

The process of calculating meaningful benchmarks is fraught with pitfalls.

Regulatory reporting requirements for major U.S. utilities provide a wealth of data for benchmarking studies. Both the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) Form 1 for electric utilities and FERC Form 2 for gas utilities involve the reporting of more than 2,500 unique data points per utility per year, across diverse aspects of utility operations, maintenance, and finance.

People

New Opportunities:

The California Public Utilities Commission (PUC) named Steve Larson executive director. Larson most recently was executive director of the California Energy Commission and chief deputy director of the department of finance.

PG&E Corp. elected Leslie H. Everett senior vice president and assistant to the chairman. PG&E Corp. also elected Russell M. Jackson senior vice president, human resources.

How joining the EU may transform the Central and Eastern European electricity sectors

It is not coincidental that energy assets are for sale across Central and Eastern Europe the same year that 10 new countries join the European Union (EU). New member states had to demonstrate significant sector reforms to qualify for EU membership. These sectors have historically had miserable economic results due to artificially maintained low prices, poor and often corrupt management, and significant political interference.

Commission Watch

Solving the dilemma.

The rationale from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) for eliminating through-and-out (T&O) rates while simultaneously imposing a Seams Elimination Charge/Cost Adjustment/Assignment (SECA) is an acknowledgement that FERC is conflicted on a fundamental economic principle: regional transmission organization (RTO) loads use the transmission systems of exporting RTOs; therefore, it is correct for importing customers to compensate exporting RTOs for the use of their transmission syste

A coordinated approach helps control costs.

Historically, transmission and distribution assets have been quiet utility stepchildren- generally ignored by both regulators and senior utility management while, their generating asset relations remained in the limelight. But as restructuring of the electric industry evolved in the 1990s, a looming competitive environment created strong pressures within utilities to reduce spending.

Commission Watch

FERC's AEP ruling begs the question: Can the feds bypass states that block transmission reform?

In its search for the perfect power market, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) at last has joined the battle that lately has brought state and federal regulators nearly to blows. A recent ruling puts the question squarely on the table:

The industry continues to debate the costs and technology of automated meter reading, even as some regulators insist on immediate implementation.

 

The Russian power sector is priming itself for outside financial and infrastructure investment. By Branko Terzic and James Balaschak

Prospects for the successful development of the Russian power sector in the next 20 years will depend on the inflow of private investment into the industry. The crucial task, as clearly understood by both the Russian government and the management of the major power companies, is how to significantly raise the attractiveness of the industry to private investors.

Green Generation Feels the Squeeze

 

 

Presenting a fair and simple distributed generation plan for utilities and policy-makers.

Distributed generation (DG) continues to face many institutional barriers erected before the technology emerged as an economic alternative. Chief among these barriers are existing rate and regulatory regimes, which fail to offer appropriate incentives to utilities and customers who might otherwise substitute DG facilities for distribution and generation.