economic

Here Comes the Sun

Growing Impacts of Residential Solar on Utility Customer Service

What does PV mean for utilities’ residential customer service operations? From helping customers with supplier selection, through installation and maintenance issues? And with billing? To begin to address this question, we conducted two sets of surveys of residential electricity customers in the second quarter of 2016.
Byline: 

Daniel Gabaldon, Matt Guarini and Jamie Wimberly

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We, the Regulators

The way forward, amidst new markets, technologies, and environmental imperatives.

NARUC’s incoming President – from the Montana PSC – shares his vision on how utility regulators should navigate today’s industry disruptions.
Byline: 

Travis Kavulla

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Utility Commissioners and Who They Trust

A survey sample of regulators on their dealings with peers, colleagues, staffers, and stakeholders.

How do regulators engage their staffs and colleagues? How do they view their peers in other states? The utilities they regulate? A unique view based on a sample survey of former state utility commissioners.
Byline: 

Douglas N. Jones

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EPA's Clean Power Plan: An Unequal Burden

The Clean Power Plan's largest obstacle is how its cost is distributed disproportionately among the states.

How the Clean Power Plan introduced in June by the Environmental Protection Agency will produce widely differing compliance obligations among the states, in terms of emissions targets, likely carbon prices, and effects on wholesale power prices.
Byline: 

David Bellman

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Wired Together

For DATC, grid expansion is a team effort.

An interview with key executives of Duke-American Transmission Co.: Phillip Grigsby, president, and Randy Satterfield, executive vice president. Both also sit on DATC's Board of Managers.
Byline: 

Bruce W. Radford

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FERC's Folly

Remand Order 745, fix the compensation scheme, but retain federal jurisdiction.

Why the D.C. Circuit should rehear the appeal of FERC Order 745, and how it should rule.
Byline: 

Robert L. Borlick

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Wind Power Subsidies

Today, tomorrow, forever?

NREL contradicts AWEA, finds wind power not competitive, and favors extending the production tax credit (PTC), but that won’t aid economic growth.
Byline: 

Jonathan A. Lesser

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Next-Gen Nuclear

Tomorrow’s options for low-carbon baseload generation.

The nuclear renaissance might be postponed, but technologies continue advancing. The next generation of plants will apply innovation for safety, efficiency, and modularity.
Byline: 

John A. Bewick

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Appendix: Opening the Black Box

 

 

Appendix:

Mathematical Structure of the Methodology

In this appendix to “Opening the Black Box,” (Fortnightly, January 2014), we briefly describe the basic components of the models for managing aging assets: how to represent the condition of such assets and the outcome of replacement, maintenance, and testing decisions.  

The model structure is one of optimal control with dynamic state variables and uncertainty. Let 

Byline: 

Charles D. Feinstein and Jonathan A. Lesser

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Opening the Black Box

A new approach to utility asset management.

Creating a dynamic statistical approach to designing an overall strategy for utility asset management.
Byline: 

Charles D. Feinstein and Jonathan A. Lesser

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