People
People for June 2004.
Positions filled at Southern Co., Mirant, MISO, and others.
EPRI
The New CEO's
Michael G. Morris
Interviews
For Public Utilities Fortnightly's 75th Anniversary CEO issue, the magazine looked to the horizon and asked these new captains about the planned course for their companies, and for an entire industry.
Keys to Transmission and Distribution Reliability
A coordinated approach helps control costs.
T&D asset management — crucial to preventing future blackouts — boils down to capital budgeting and project prioritization.
Technology Corridor: Bridging the Transmission Gap
A digital grid to the home, secured via a local fiber-optic network, could position utilities to fix power and telecom together.
Before billions are spent building new transmission lines to ensure reliable electric service, North American electric utilities should evaluate whether the alternatives — controlling demand and fostering distributed generation — might be more cost-effective and broadly beneficial.
People
People for January 2004.
Positions filled at Southern Co., Southwest Power Pool, Avista Corp., and others.
Frontlines
CERA's Daniel Yergin says global gas markets will define the new century, just as oil did for the last 100 years.
Cambridge Energy Research Associates Chairman Daniel Yergin captures in a few words oil's extraordinary past. Might those words one day describe the next 100 years of natural gas development? Talking with Yergin in early November, I found a man convinced that the forces that shaped a global oil market are at work in shaping a global market for natural gas. I'll be sharing some of his words with you.
Technology Corridor
Reliability demands will drive automation investments.
Technology Corridor
Reliability demands will drive automation investments.
In the days and weeks following Aug. 14, 2003, politicians scrambled to assess blame for the blackouts that plagued the United States and Canada.
Even today, as the blame game proceeds, the precise cause of the grid's collapse remains uncertain. But Republicans, Democrats, and the utility industry alike seem to agree on one thing: the U.S. power grid needs major investment.
The Near-Term Fix
How to mitigate transmission risk before the next big blackout.
How to mitigate transmission risk before the next big blackout.
By now there has been much industry analysis and finger-pointing over what happened on Aug. 14. Will we get a definitive answer to why the lights went out in the Northeast, Midwest, and Canada? Even after we've identified all the causal factors, the most important question to be asking ourselves as an industry is, Why?
The Myth of the Transmission Deficit
The grid does not need a Marshall Plan for new investment.
The grid does not need a Marshall Plan for new investment.
We don't know what caused the Aug. 14 blackout, but somehow we know that our transmission system needs $50 billion to $100 billion in investment and upgrades. And utilities need higher returns to raise that kind of money. Talk about making lemonade out of lemons.
The reality is that we aren't short $50 billion or $100 billion in our transmission system. The study said to support that proposition just doesn't do the job.
Technology Corridor
Has the Aug. 14 blackout finally made it more than a pipe dream?
Technology Corridor
Has the Aug. 14 blackout finally made it more than a pipe dream?
Former Secretary of Energy Bill Richardson ticked off a whole lot of people in the industry when he pronounced the United States a superpower with "a Third World electricity grid."
Yet while debate continues about the causes of the Northeast blackout, there's no arguing that the majority of transmission and distribution in this country is controlled via mechanical technology largely developed in the 1950s.