IT

Pay by Text

SMS offers an alternative to paper billing. Smart Meters Driving Adoption Customer Engagement Supporting the Payment Process Learning from Europe

Text messaging promises benefits in customer service and bill-payment efficiencies. Utilities have been slow to take up the opportunities, but successes in other industries and among European utilities is opening the door to SMS transactions for American power companies.

Saving The Smart Grid

Hype, hysteria, and strategic planning.

The industry is learning some painful lessons about public communication. Hype has given way to hysteria over smart grid rollouts, and forced many companies to re-think their strategies. Capturing the benefits of new technology requires a straightforward approach to selling the benefits — and facing the costs.

Transactions (December 2010)

Northeast Utilities buys NStar in $4.3 billion stock deal; Toyota Tsusho buys into Oyster Creek Cogeneration; ITOCHU buys into wind farm; Atlantic Power buys wood-fired plant from ArcLight; plus equity and bond deals totaling nearly $3 billion.

Vendor Neutral

Lockheed Martin teams with Tendril; Pattern Energy 101 MW wind plant starts operating; Alstom to supply steam equipment to GWF plant; Siemens wins government efficiency contract; GE Jenbacher introduces high-efficiency gas engine; OpenADR Alliance forms; Better Place gets into San Francisco taxis; EnerNOC enters TransAmerica Pyramid; and more.

21st Century Talent

Building a workforce for today’s utility landscape.

Utilities can attract a new generation of employees by emphasizing the transformation the industry now faces, and the immense opportunity it creates. Matching mature workers’ vast experience with new technologies can provide unique perspectives that knowledge of new technologies alone can’t provide.

First Refusals, Least Regrets

What California can teach FERC about transmission planning.

The California ISO is going its own way with its proposal for transmission planning, virtually ignoring FERC’s proposed rules on transmission planning and cost allocation. California wants to bring method to the madness of developing transmission projects, and its approach has raised hackles in the industry. The dispute defines the battle over America’s most attractive market for rate-regulated investment.

Vendor Neutral

Former Pres. Bill Clinton and other dignitaries help Duke, Cisco and Charlotte, N.C., launch commercial efficiency initiative; AEP signs 20-year MOU to buy solar output from New Harvest plant; Wartsila expands gas-fired generator in Turkey; U.S. DOE awards geothermal RD&D grants; GE acquires Dresser for $3 billion, and also acquires Calnetix industrial cogen technology; SunEdison sells 70 MW Rovigo PV plant; Ford Motor Co.

Smart Standardization

Coordinated efforts aim toward global principles.

The smart grid is poised for a tremendous rollout of new and revised technology standards in the next few years, but that’s just the beginning. IEEE Standards Association President Charlton Adams Jr. explains the objective of the intensifying smart grid standards effort is to address and satisfy the full gamut of economic, political and social goals related to the smart grid.

Legal Battleground

2010 Law & Lawyers Report

The U.S. utility industry has never faced a more uncertain legal and regulatory landscape. From FERC demand-response pricing to state ratemaking disputes, legal trends and decisions are reshaping the power and gas market. The industry’s top legal minds provide strategic counsel. By definition, a battlefield is an ugly place. Conflict creates chaos, uncertainty and danger.

Constant Vigilance

A holistic approach to smart-grid security.

In the new world of the smart grid, security isn’t a destination. It’s a sustained effort with ongoing investments across core areas of the utility enterprise.