Efficiency and Demand Response: Twins, Siblings, or Cousins?
Analyzing the conservation effects of demand response programs.
Does demand response increase or decrease overall electricity usage?
Fortnightly Magazine - March 2005
Automatic Meter Reading: Debunking the Myths
Advanced Meter Reading
Advanced Meter Reading
An executive speaks out.
I think, frankly, that it's those marketing folks who conjure up all the myths about advanced meter reading. Rather than sheepishly admitting that their product is deficient in multiple areas, corporate spinmeisters spin webs of words and images into difficult-to-understand concepts, hoping upon hope they can fool us. They bank on the old adage: tell a lie enough and soon people will begin to believe it.
Byline:
Mark Leach
Frontlines
Can utility executives find happiness in back-to-basics?
Frontlines
Can utility executives find happiness in back-to-basics?
We've read the pitch a number of times in these very pages. Top investment bankers have told us that a "back-to-basics" strategy will never produce a high-enough return to please electric utility stockholders; that the only solution to bridge this "earnings gap" would involve a rash of mergers and acquisitions (M&A) between utilities.
Byline:
Richard Stavros, Executive Editor
People
<font color="red">New Opportunities:</font>
People
Byline:
We welcome submissions to People, especially those accompanied by a high-resolution color photograph. E-mail to: photos@pur.com(link sends e-mail)
Power Measurements
An improved definition of heating and cooling degree-days for power markets.
Power Measurement
An improved definition of heating and cooling degree-days for power markets.
Anyone who owns an air conditioner and pays an electric bill knows that weather drives demand for electricity, but quantifying the relationship between weather and electricity demand isn't easy. Was last winter severely cold? Winters are always cold. If it really was cold, exactly how cold was it?
Byline:
Aaron Brasket
Perspective
Renewable Energy in the 21st Century:
Perspective
Renewable Energy in the 21st Century:
State involvement in promoting renewable technologies has profound implications for the future of the energy industry.
Election-year posturing seems to have prevented the federal government from reaching consensus on a number of energy issues ranging from standard market design to global warming, MBTE to Kyoto, ANWR to nuclear waste disposal.
Byline:
Philip J. Deutch
Commission Watch
What everybody missed in setting up the regional grids.
Commission Watch
What everybody missed in setting up the regional grids.
While the electric utility industry has largely agreed on what elements to include in a standard market design (SMD) to govern wholesale power trading in a given region, recent experience shows that the regulators from time to time have overlooked a number of things.
Byline:
Bruce W. Radford
Business & Money
Sticking to the Knitting:
Business & Money
Sticking to the Knitting:
A review of three years of post-Enron stock performance by electric utilities.
Immediately following the Enron collapse, investors dumped the stock of any electric power company that appeared to be pursuing non-traditional growth strategies. Any company that emphasized unregulated businesses-investments in overseas assets, merchant power plant development, and energy marketing and trading-was suspect.
Byline:
Dean C. Maschoff, Thomas F. Read, and R. John Dingle
Technology Corridor
Mobile workers provide the next opportunity for utility productivity gains.
Technology Corridor
Mobile workers provide the next opportunity for utility productivity gains.
Field workers at many electric, gas, and water utilities have not realized the benefits of their company's substantial investments in office-based information technology (IT) systems for work and asset management, customer service and billing, geographic information systems, mobile technologies, or even e-mail.
Byline:
David Rouls
Energy Risk & Market
<font color="red">SPECIAL SERIES Part 3</font>
SPECIAL SERIES Part 3
Energy Risk & Markets
Default Retail Supply:
New Jersey's recent basic generation service auction shows how ignoring the many sources of risk can be financially ruinous.
Bidding at last year's basic generation service (BGS) auction in New Jersey was generally found to be extremely aggressive as many merchant energy providers watched in amazement as the bid prices continued to fall during the course of the auction.
Byline:
Tom Brady