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Strategy & Planning

The Bigger CIS Picture

Data Mining and Warehousing: Many utilities have no ability to turn raw customer information into significant insights about their business.

The customer-information system (CIS) is the system of record for both customer and meter data, and in combination with asset databases, these information repositories comprise the lifeblood of every utility. They usually are not tuned for analysis or for easy reporting, so a single view of the customer and the business processes surrounding the customer does not exist in most of the systems in use today. Many utilities, as a result, are data rich but information poor. Enter the Data Warehouse.
Byline: 

Bill Barnett

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Europe: Picture of a Stalled Competitive Model

Several hurdles remain to further liberalization and full competition in the electricity sector.

Two major trends can be observed in Europe’s electricity sector. First, the increasing importance of private-sector participation in a sector that was traditionally viewed as belonging to the state. The second major trend in Europe is that of the massive amount of merger and acquisition activity across the continent. At the same time, several hurdles remain to further liberalization and full competition in the European electricity sector.
Byline: 

Bridgett Neely & A.J. Goulding

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Corporate Risk: What Does Management Really Know?

A short list of questions that every board member and senior manager should be able to answer.

“We pursue a disciplined approach to risk management" says the CEO of a major utility during the company's earnings call with analysts and investors. In this era of increased scrutiny over corporate governance, how can senior management and the board be certain that this statement is accurate, and where does the discipline begin?
Byline: 

Brett Friedman and Tim Essaye

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Betting on Broadband

Are consumer broadband over powerline (BPL) services enough to make the business case for utilities?

After years of development, technology to deliver high-speed data over the existing electric power delivery network has emerged in the marketplace. In some sections of Cincinnati and Manassas, Va., consumers now have an alternative to DSL and cable for broadband Internet access. It's real and it works.
Byline: 

Karen George

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IT Roundtable: The Digitized Grid

Data gathering and controllability offer the quickest path to reliability.

Technology leaders at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, the Electric Power Research Institute, and the National Rural Telecommunications Cooperative present their visions of energy IT in the 21st century.
Byline: 

Michael T. Burr

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Merchant Power: Ratepayers Back At Risk

A review of power plant deals in 2004 shows that utilities are buying.

Whether evolution or devolution, the merchant deals done to date show movement to a familiar structure; ratepayers are back at risk. While ratepayers have benefitted from merchant plants, they also paid since competition began with PURPA in 1978, and many of the acquisitions put them at risk for future changes in power values and fuel costs.
Byline: 

Jeff Bodington

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Debilitating Doctrine

How the filed-rate policy wreaks havoc — and what courts can do about it.

Like many venerable legal rules, the filed-rate doctrine is rarely questioned. Over the last century, it has served many important purposes. However, with deregulated wholesale electric power markets at the federal level and various degrees of deregulation across the states, both the doctrine's continued applicability and usefulness are suspect.
Byline: 

Jim Rossi

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Power Measurements: Welcome to ComEd, Population 1,281

What did LMPs tell us this summer in PJM's new neighborhood?

With one summer under its belt as a member of PJM, ComEd has been called a complete success by some, boring by others. Using data from Energy Velocity's Market Ops and Weather products, we can see the impact of transmission and weather on ComEd this summer.
Byline: 

Aaron Brasket, Tom Ottem, and Mike McNair

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Comments on 'Solving the Crisis in Unscheduled Power'

Letters to the Editor

Robert Blohm's article, "Solving the Crisis in Unscheduled Power," ignores a significant part of the power-scheduling paradigm — that is, it ignores transmission. Every power schedule not only includes load and generation but also a path to move the electricity between those points.
Byline: 

Mark B. Lively

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