Rewards, challenges and options for rate-based investments.
Utilities traditionally have met renewable portfolio standards with power purchases from IPPs. But new approaches are allowing utilities to build their rate bases with investments in solar generation.
Granular customer data will revolutionize megawatt markets.
Advanced metering and other smart technologies will allow more granular monitoring of conservation efforts, making them highly predictable for resource planning and system dispatch. Eventually, the smart grid will erase distinctions between wholesale and retail markets.
Volatile markets call for alternative financial models.
Should the power industry adapt its approach to capital markets in this environment? The answer, of course, is yes. Multiple frameworks are necessary to establish a power company’s or project’s current cost of capital, especially under volatile capital market conditions. The analyses reveal that in today’s capital markets, it is critical to balance or combine the alternative approaches to the cost of capital in order to develop a long-term view.
Who will oversee the industry’s cyber standards?
Who will oversee the industry’s cyber standards? Effective security calls for a single organization to set standards that will protect the smart grid. The industry is struggling to reach consensus over authority, scope and funding for its new security apparatus.
Renewables attract utility investment dollars.
New federal policies have opened the gates to utility investments in renewable generating plants. Some states, however, still make it difficult for utilities to put such assets into the rate base. Executives at Duke, OG&E, PG&E and Xcel Energy discuss challenges and opportunities affecting their renewable investment strategies.
New business models make energy storage attractive.
Utilities are leaving no stone unturned in their search for ways to save electricity. Federal incentives will support new technologies and projects, but can those incentives overcome structural barriers that stand in the way of major efficiency improvements?
Utility turbines bridge the capacity gap.
Utilities are turning to natural gas as a bridge fuel, and to support non-dispatchable renewables.
Scenarios depict possible nuclear waste futures.
Nuclear-waste management is a multi-billion dollar problem, and the future of nuclear power will depend on its resolution. Four scenarios depict possible outcomes and impacts on the electric power industry.
New approaches to contracting in a post-turnkey world.
Sponsors of new nuclear power projects face a gauntlet of development challenges, from fickle regulatory policies to supply chain uncertainties. By preemptively addressing risks and taking a systematic, hands-on approach to development, companies can improve chances for a nuclear renaissance in America.
A new theory on capacity markets and the missing money.
On Wednesday May 7, FERC will host a conference in Washington, D.C. that might prove extraordinary. The commission staff promises not only to review the forward capacity markets now operating in New England and PJM—each a story unto itself—but also to discuss a new rate-making theory that has come virtually out of nowhere and which proposes to help solve the notorious “missing money” problem.