Order 1000

Energy People: Ken Gerling

We talked with Ken Gerling, vice president of transmission projects at Burns & McDonnell.

During his twenty-five-years at Burns & McDonnell, Ken Gerling has managed transmission projects with capital costs of nearly two billion dollars, and led teams with as many as three hundred and fifty members.

Harbinger or Anomaly?

As it becomes more routine for developers to offer cost containment commitments, it will become increasingly difficult for RTOs to ignore the cost impact of proposals.

Are recent transmission developer selections based on cost containment a harbinger of the future or just an anomaly?

Going Against the Flow

Transmission cost allocation when electrons and benefits move in different directions.

You’ve heard the old saw, “Costs are assigned to those who caused them.” But what about damage from Superstorm Sandy? Who “caused” that?

Her Next Hurdle

ITC’s Linda Blair on where to build tomorrow’s grid.

Linda Blair, executive v.p. and chief business officer for grid giant ITC, discusses how ITC plans to navigate the new transmission landscape and where ITC might turn for its next major transmission project.

Life in the Transco Age

The competitive transmission genie is out of the bottle.

FERC Orders 890 and 1000 have opened the doors to independent transcos, heralding an era of innovation to solve reliability and capacity problems.

Sound and Fury

How NIPSCO feels leaned on.

Northern Indiana Public Service, the MISO member sandwiched between PJM’s Ohio territory and its noncontiguous Chicago outpost, feels particularly aggrieved by the failure of the MISO-PJM Joint Operating Agreement, approved by FERC in 2004, to facilitate cross-border grid projects to relieve constraints along the ragged and interlaced seam that separates the two regions.

Cross-Border Bargaining

Interregional grid planning under FERC Order 1000.

Territorial fights emerge in the interregional transmission plans proposed for compliance with FERC Order 1000.

Walking the Fuzzy Bright Line

The legality of state ROFR laws under FERC Order 1000.

States have passed laws to bypass FERC Order 1000 and its reforms favoring private grid developers. Could those laws themselves fall under attack?

Rise of the Machines

Who’s afraid of the transactive grid?

Smart grids and nodal markets spark the emergence of a transactional grid. In fact it’s already happened, and we’re just becoming aware.

Industry in Transition

Utility CEOs face disruptive trends.

Top executives at AEP, the California ISO, and El Paso Electric address key challenges and opportunities.