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Infrastructure

Marginal Utility

Changing the Electric Utility Financial Paradigm

Global capital markets have accommodated the industry with low interest rates and high stock price multiples, but capital markets are fickle. Electrics will be capitalized more like other industrial companies, and less like regulated monopolies.
Byline: 

Leonard S. Hyman and William I. Tilles

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Energy People: Tony Clark

We talked with FERC Commissioner Tony Clark, who has said he will not seek a second term.

Commissioner Clark is serving his first term at FERC and formerly served as a member of the North Dakota Public Service Commission. He was interviewed by Pat McMurray, who has a long background in the energy business.
Byline: 

Tony Clark, with Pat McMurray

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Energy Cloud Playbook

Building Competitive Advantage for Grid of the Future

The pace and impact of change in the energy industry are unrelenting. Utilities must rethink many of the assumptions that have anchored strategic planning to date. This requires that utilities play both defense as well as offense to remain competitive.
Byline: 

Mackinnon Lawrence and Jan Vrins

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A Formula for Grid Modernization?

How is it going?

Ann McCabe is a commissioner at the Illinois Commerce Commission. The views expressed in this article are her own.

Five years have passed since Commonwealth Edison and Ameren Illinois elected to participate in the Energy Infrastructure Modernization Act, which authorized $3.2 billion in grid hardening and smart meter investments. As a commissioner at the Illinois Commerce Commission, I am often asked: How is it going?

Byline: 

Ann McCabe, with Orijit Ghoshal and Bill Peters

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Electricity, Economic Efficiency and Growth

Building a fully integrated grid is the next great opportunity to realize higher levels of economic efficiency and prosperity.

A cost benefit analysis in electricity typically achieves assessment of future costs but usually considers only a single type of benefit: operational cost savings.
Byline: 

Silvio Flaim and Loren Toole

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The Gas-Power Vision: Five Obstacles

Regulatory and rate proceedings at FERC can be time consuming and expensive, but this hurdle can be overcome.

For the natural gas infrastructure and the available pipeline system capacity to be utilized as a foundation for the reduction in power transmission congestion, there are certain issues that need to be addressed.
Byline: 

Ron Hrehor and Don Sytsma

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Electricity's Capacity Factor, a Problem?

Electric infrastructure is used half the time on average. Is this a problem requiring rapid radical reform?

Some of you take the subway to work. What’s the capacity factor of the subway system? Our electric grid provides enormous value to its customers, with a combination of infrastructure and workforces with varying capacity factors.
Byline: 

Steve Mitnick

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