Fortnightly Magazine - February 15 1999

Generating Plant Sales and Acquisitions: Who's Doing What, and Why

Sales prices for power generation assets in the United States during the past two years have climbed to unprecedented levels. This trend should continue. More than 20,000 megawatts of generation assets have been sold, with another 20,000 MW announced. During the next five years, it is expected that 70,000 to 140,000 MW will change hands. We have seen only the beginning of a massive redistribution of generation assets - from regulated utilities to unregulated marketers and plant operators.

In fact, the prices we've seen for generation assets may turn out to be bargains.

Frontlines

Micro maverick Bill Althouse sees a grand conspiracy to blot out customer-owned generation.

Distributed generation is out of the box. It's time for regulators to wake up. The paradigm has already shifted."

That's Bill Althouse talking, president of Althouse Inc. of Albuquerque, N.M., a seat-of-the pants business (he says he's near bankruptcy) that helps homeowners and businesses install on-site generation. I met him via email as I researched why, on Jan.

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