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Fortnightly Magazine - March 2010

Regulation by Formula

Tools to facilitate changing utility economics.

These are challenging times for the electric and gas utilities. Reliability projects, renewable portfolio standards, greenhouse-gas emissions control, AMI, smart-grid investments, and conservation programs—all these things add to costs, but might bring in no additional revenue. Moreover, there will be unprecedented capital investment in transmission, renewable generation projects, and replacement of old facilities from the 1950s and 1960s. Thus, earnings likely will be more closely watched and traditional general rate cases might not be able to keep up.

Byline: 

Michael Schmidt

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Grid, Heal Thyself

Automation technologies promise a reliability revolution.

Utilities are using automation and back-office systems to improve their performance on outage management and service restoration. The next generation of smart-grid technologies promises a revolution in self-healing systems. But first the industry must gain confidence in the technology—and the business case for investment.

Byline: 

Alyssa Danigelis

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Preparing for the Inevitable

Mitigating enforcement penalties in NERC hearings and appeals.

The North American Electric Reliability Corp. (NERC) holds substantial enforcement powers as the nation’s electric reliability organization for bulk power transactions. Taking affirmative steps will help utilities and system operators to avoid or minimize NERC penalties.

Byline: 

Daniel E. Frank & Caileen N. Gamache

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NERC Today and Tomorrow

Living in the new world of mandatory reliability standards.

Mandatory reliability standards put in place by NERC three years ago give reason for optimism concerning their success. But the organization struggles with standards development, compliance, enforcement and transparency.

Byline: 

Zhen Zhang and Matthew Stern

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Integrating Renewables

Opportunity for advancement or exercise in futility?

The power grid has been slow to embrace renewable energy sources. In order to allow renewable energy sources to evolve into a solution rather than a headache, new tools and processes will need to be developed to forecast and control renewable production capabilities.

Byline: 

Mani Vadari

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Vendor Neutral

Generation

Siemens Energy has been awarded an 18-month, $300,000 R&D program by the Illinois Clean Coal Institute to study the effects of coal and coal-derived syngas combustion on the behavior of material and coating degradation in utility boiler and gas turbine environments. Focus areas of the research program will explore materials degradation modes in integrated gasification combined-cycle (IGCC) systems and utility boilers.

Byline: 
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The Green Police

Technology advances despite a political conflict.

Opinion polls show that Americans are growing tired of eco-nannyism. This isn’t a new trend, but on February 7 it went prime-time, during the biggest TV event of the year: Superbowl XLIV.

Byline: 

Michael T. Burr, Editor-in-Chief

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People (March 2010)

FirstEnergy announced that James G. Garanich is named v.p., tax, replacing the retired Gene Sitarz. Garanich was a tax partner with Ernst & Young. Ty R. Pine was hired as state governmental affairs manager for Ohio. Duke Energy Generation Services appointed Tony Dorazio as senior v.p. for wind development. He helped launch London-based BP Alternative Energy’s wind power business. And more...
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Letters to the Editor

(March 2010) New Day for Prudence: I am sending this letter at the request of Robert Gruber, who is the executive director of the Public Staff-North Carolina Utilities Commission (NCUC), which is the state agency charged with representing the public in matters before the NCUC. In the article, “New Day for Prudence,” the group that filed the quoted testimony is not “the Office of Public Counsel.” It consists of a number of non-profits and associations that banded together and called themselves the Public Advocacy Groups for the purpose of intervening before the NCUC. We’re also concerned because the article’s description of the NCUC’s ruling is erroneous.

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