Combining real-time usage data with the newest technology can earn benefits for utilities.
Critics say FERC's filed rate doctrine is wrong for the times.
Let's look back over the past few years-what we got right and where we went wrong.
Do you recall how you felt at your last class reunion? Well, that's exactly what an editor feels when asked to reminisce in public about days gone by at the magazine to which he gave his best years.
A new approach to rate design.
Wisconsinites don't fear 'Day 2.' But let's get the grid rights right.
Commission Watch
FERC's AEP ruling begs the question: Can the feds bypass states that block transmission reform?
In its search for the perfect power market, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) at last has joined the battle that lately has brought state and federal regulators nearly to blows. A recent ruling puts the question squarely on the table:
Perspective
Locational pricing makes the network secure, since the utilities and other market participants get 'paid' to monitor the grid.
The recent pressure on the board and stakeholders of the Midwest Independent Transmission System Operator (MISO)-to postpone the startup of energy markets and concentrate instead on "reliability"-is truly unfortunate. It allows opponents of restructuring to continue to pose a false choice: You can have markets or you can have reliability, but never both.
A cost-benefit study shows the value of adding synchronized generating reserves to prevent blackouts on the scale of Aug.14.
If nothing else, the blackout of Aug. 14 showed just how physically vulnerable the electric transmission network has become to problems that begin at a very localized level. That vulnerability stems in part of the greater volume of long-distance transactions imposed on the grid by today's power industry.
Commission Watch
Feds seek plug-and-play for distributed generation, but utilities want the power to stay local.
Pity the poor Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC). With its market crusade out of favor, and transmission reform suddenly suspect after the Aug. 14 blackout, it could use a new agenda.
It would join an RTO but dictate the terms-a dangerous game that has the industry talking.
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.