ISO

Time After Time

Regulators are starting to show signs of strain over the restructuring debate.

Up to now, many in the industry thought everybody but the regulators had tired of the constant back-and-forth over regional market issues such as standard market design. This is not to say that state regulators have been able to find any common resolution.

Byline:

Richard Stavros

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Prevention Prescriptions

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.

Byline:

Michael T. Burr

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The Near-Term Fix

How to mitigate transmission risk before the next big blackout.

New legislation and bigger power lines won’t solve the immediate problem for the grid: the threat of failure. Energy providers must begin thinking of reliability in terms of days rather than years, and they must roll out programs and enhance technology now to protect assets, as well as customers.

Byline:

Ralph G. Loretta & James E. Anderson

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MISO-PJM Super Region: FERC Makes Companies Pay for RTO Choices

Irregular seams affect ratemaking policies.

In a case that marks the first time FERC eliminated inter-RTO rate pancaking, the commission in late July issued an order terminating regional through-and-out rates (RTORs) charged by two regional transmission owners. The decision removes an estimated $250 million in yearly fees collected by those two entities. But the lost revenue has parties to the proceeding squabbling over many aspects of the case.

Byline:

Lori A. Burkhart

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Letters to the Editor

Two letters, one correction

Jonathan Jacobs, Managing Consultant at PA Consulting Group, responds to a letter to the editor in the Oct. 1, 2003 issue from Lewis Evans and Kevin Counsell. And former FERC commissioner Matthew Holden Jr. disagrees with John Sillin's commentary in "The Blackout of 2003: Why We Fell Into the Heart of Darkness" in the Sept. 15, 2003 issue.

Byline:

PUF

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AEP's Gutsy Gambit

It would join an RTO but dictate the terms — a dangerous game that has the industry talking.

When I talked a few months ago with AEP President and CEO Linn Draper Jr., he discussed how his company would have joined the PJM RTO in March were it not for the backlash he was getting from certain state regulators.

Byline:

Richard Stavros

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What Does Shakespeare Know About Utility Leadership?

New realities demand new direction from utilities.

To paraphrase Shakespeare, "The true soul of joy is in the process." For the utility industry, nothing could be further from the truth. The deregulatory "process" has not been joyful. It has been painful and costly.

Byline:

Timothy F. Sutherland and Gary Vicinus

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Blackouts? never Again! (But...)

We ask merchant grid developers if anything can ever be done.

How will technicians prevent another major blackout? Fortnightly weaves the opinions of industry insiders on the keys to electric reliability with a cautionary tale from Connecticut to present solutions for what’s ailing the grid.

Byline:

Lori A. Burkhart

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The CIO Forum: Budgets Byte Back

Chief tech officers discuss how they are using their data to beat the competitition.

CIOs from a traditional utility, a merchant generator, and an independent system operator tell how they stretched every penny to make their companies technologically savvy during tough economic times. They say data, not applications, ruled the roost this year—and will in the future

Byline:

Jennifer Alvey

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Mistake by the Lake

The blackout could doom deregulation, but why treat reliability and reform as either-or?

The Great Blackout of August 2003 may well spell the doom of deregulation as we know it for the electric industry. Yet I believe that reliability and a move to markets need not be mutually exclusive. Rather, they must march forward together, in step, for either to succeed.

Byline:

Bruce W. Radford

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