The CEO Forum: The Ultimate CEOs: Peggy Fowler
President and CEO, Portland General Electric
“I think in our business, meeting higher customer expectations and staying focused on that all of the time will ultimately serve your shareholders.”
Fortnightly Magazine - June 2006
The CEO Forum: The Ultimate CEOs: J. Wayne Leonard
CEO, Entergy
“I think it is my job as a leader to make sure that our values are always lived up to even when [they] conflict necessarily with our vision. That is what people look for at the end of the day. A leader’s role above all else is to make sure the truth is respected.”
Mending Our Broken Capacity Markets
The ability to provide reliable capacity is becoming both riskier and more costly to society and investors alike.
The ability to provide reliable capacity is becoming both riskier and more costly to society and investors alike.
Do Utility Mergers Deliver?
Not in all cases, or for all stakeholders. Here’s why.
The industry perceives substantial benefits from consolidating. But what is the track record? Does the regulatory and strategic landscape suggest these mergers are beneficial?
The New Art of Plant Acquisition
Forget the mega merger as a means to acquire new power plants. FERC’s new rules may offer a better path.
Forget the mega merger as a means to acquire new power plants. FERC’s new rules may offer a better path.
Where Is Super-FERC?
Sweeping revisions to Order 888 are needed before true wholesale competition can take place.
There’s been a lot of talk in the industry about new super powers for market enforcement, conferred by Congress on FERC in last year’s energy legislation. But this hasn’t been the case entirely. Many believe that FERC still labors at a disadvantage.
Pondering PJM's Energy Price Run-Up
Does inappropriate market power explain the increase during late 2005?
Beginning around June 2005, prices in the PJM day-ahead locational market pricing energy markets and real-time pricing markets rose precipitously. Based on publicly available information, our study concludes that these price increases are not fully explained by higher loads and higher commodity fuel prices. Could higher energy prices be the result of the inappropriate exercise of market power rather than the appropriate result of market dynamics operating in the presence of scarcity?
People
(June 2006) Mirant Corp. appointed Jose (Joey) P. Leviste Jr. as chairman, president, and CEO of Mirant Philippines, and as a senior vice president of Mirant Corp. Ian C. Connor joined Goldman Sachs in 2006 as a managing director in its Power & Energy Group. Unitil Corp. shareholders elected Robert G. Schoenberger, Charles H. Tenney III, and Dr. Sarah P. Voll to its board of directors. Piedmont Natural Gas announced several changes in the company’s executive management team.
Wind and the Environment: The EPA's Tech Divide
Does the Clean Air Act require the agency to consider the most low-emission coal plant technologies in permitting new plants?
Why doesn’t its interpretation of the Clean Air Act consider the most low-emission coal plant technologies?
Will Calpine's "Plan B" Restructuring Work?
The resource overbuild in the West complicates the company’s efforts.
Calpine’s announcement that it will shed 20 of its 92 power plants, close three offices, and lay off 775 more staff in a bid to emerge from bankruptcy caused by more than $22 billion in total debt was not unexpected. The question is whether these actions will be sufficient to get the job done.