Become a PUF Member Organization

Fortnightly Magazine - April 2005

The Widening Technological Divide

Increased business and regulatory challenges have utilities lagging in investments to meet energy demand a decade from now.

The electricity enterprise has tended through restructuring to become a victim of its historic success in maintaining universal service reliability at ever-lower cost. The essential foundation for restoring enterprise vitality in the coming decade is rebuilding this fundamental public/private partnership, based on technology innovations that can increase the value of electricity service, including providing higher levels of reliability and security.
Byline: 

Kurt E. Yeager

Read Entire Article

Gas Executives Forum: The New Downstream Dynamic

Gas distributors tell how their business strategies are changing in response to issues such as higher gas prices, electric M&A, LNG, and gas pipeline development. 

Does the push for liquefied natural gas raise more questions than it answers? Will natural-gas prices level off? Gas executives from Duke Energy, New Jersey Natural Gas, National Grid USA, Sempra Energy, and Southern Co. tackle the most pressing issues.
Byline: 

Michael T. Burr

Read Entire Article

Utilities and BPL: Betting Against the Odds

Why broadband over power line (BPL) can't stand alone as a high-speed Internet offering.

Broadband over power line (BPL) wants to compete with cable modems and DSL for high-speed Internet customers, but BPL providers can make the technology more attractive by bundling the service with other product offerings.
Byline: 

William P. Zarakas and Kenneth J. Martinian

Read Entire Article

Guns, Butter, or Green?

Utilities will face stark tradeoffs in meeting the next round of emissions controls.

Some utility execs gasp at the shear breadth of environmental proposals being bandied about during the past few weeks. Even the environmentalists are calling "historical" the extent to which different kinds of emissions will be regulated.
Byline: 

Richard Stavros

Read Entire Article

People

The California Independent System Operator board of governors hired Yakout Mansour to be its president and CEO. And others...
Read Entire Article

Letters to the Editor

Why not let the industry make its own decisions on how to meet economy-wide reductions in greenhouse-gas intensity as a percentage of GDP? It can be demonstrated easily that the land requirements for biomass to replace fossil fuels far exceed what is available in the world and the United States, including croplands, pastures, and meadows.
Byline: 

Henry R. Linden

Read Entire Article

Closing the Green Gap

Will wind power close the gap between state renewable portfolio standards and the current shortfall in viable technologies?

Renewable portfolio standards or mandatory renewable quotas have been established in 20 states and formally considered in 6 more. There is currently an energy shortfall of 118,400 GWh between operating non-hydro renewable electric output today and that required in 2020. Many state and local regulatory agencies have begun to work together to overcome many of the historic barriers to renewables development, such as transmission constraints, permitting, tax policy, and trading. It's clear that they will have to if renewable energy technologies are ever to meet state renewable portfolio standards.
Byline: 

Kent S. Knutson and Peter McMahan

Read Entire Article

FERC’s Market-Power Test: First, Do No Harm

Why a new market-power screen—accounting for the relationship between customers and suppliers in the wholesale marketplace—is a necessity.

The philosophy of "first, do no harm" has served the medical profession well for more than 2,000 years. Today, it may be equally good advice for FERC as it seeks to create fair and accurate screens to determine who does and does not have market power. One of the two interim screens FERC is using to evaluate applications for market-based rate authority may create a large number of false positives—power suppliers judged to have market power when in reality they do not. To remedy this, FERC should add a new market-power screen based upon an analysis of the actual relationship between customers and suppliers in the wholesale marketplace.
Byline: 

Louis R. Jahn

Read Entire Article
V