Overcoming Fear of Fire
Lessons from the Neolithic Age
Some thrive. Others are lost to the ages. What makes the difference? Applied ingenuity.
Tracking the Bugs with Smart Meter Data
A few years ago, a medical researcher asked to add an agenda item to a meeting I was chairing in Geneva, Switzerland. Combining geographic and consumption data from real-time electric meter readings would allow public health officials to track the origin, path, and intensity of many contagious diseases.
Residential and Commercial Customers Set Records
The residential and commercial classes bought record volumes of electricity this summer
On Tuesday afternoon, the Energy Department published electricity industry data for August. Among the thousands of values was this number: 155,863.
As in 155,863 thousand megawatt-hours. That was the nation’s residential consumption of electricity in August.
Residential consumption has never been that high in any month in history.
August 2016 consumption is now number one. It beat number two, July 2011, by seven tenths of a percent.
NARUC's Existential Threat Defeated in 1931, and PUF
The character of NARUC Annual Meetings was disputed and settled at the 1931 Meeting, including NARUC’s strong relationship with PUF
This year’s NARUC Annual Meeting starts in two and a half weeks, in La Quinta, California. Few of those planning to attend know that the character of the Annual Meetings was disputed and settled at the 1931 Meeting in Richmond, Virginia.
David Lilienthal of the Wisconsin Public Service Commission already had a national reputation. He would later help found and lead the Tennessee Valley Authority and then the Atomic Energy Commission. But in October 1931, the regulatory reformer upset and clashed with his fellow regulators in Richmond.
Flat Rates Were Known in 1917 as the American Plan
A number of states are discussing retail electric and gas distribution rates based on demand considerations. It may come as a surprise, to some, that demand rates are not new at all to the public utility industry.
According to my 1917 edition of Public Utility Rates by Harry Barker, the concept of a multi-part tariff was first introduced in 1892.
Dr. John Hopkinson in England gave an address to the Junior Engineering Society. His two-part demand and energy rate is still known as the Hopkinson Demand Rate.
Electric Vehicles: The race is on!
The electric power industry is not new to the desire to have electric cars added to the grid.
A hundred years ago, legendary automobile manufacturer Henry Ford and equally legendary inventor and electric power industry founder Thomas Edison, two friends who fished and camped together in late life, considered manufacturing electric cars. They even developed a prototype jointly.
Check out this interview with Ford in the New York Times of January 11, 1914:
Electric Service Becomes Cheaper
On Tuesday, the Labor Department released the Consumer Price Index data for September. It shows electric utility service continues to become cheaper inflation-adjusted.
Nationally, the CPI overall went up 1.5 percent since September 2015. But the CPI electricity went up just 0.1 percent during the period.
The gap between the CPI overall and the CPI electricity was 1.4 percent.
In the Northeast, the CPI overall went up 1.3 percent. But the CPI electricity went up just 0.3 percent.
October 2016 Crossword Puzzle Answers
Here are the answers to the crossword puzzle in October’s issue of Public Utilities Fortnightly.
Local Financing Benefits U.S. Utilities
Banks, Utilities Find Natural Fit
Local banks are still an under-utilized resource for electric utilities, despite the role these banks played historically. Regional and local banks are often healthier than big banks, according to the Federal Reserve.
Success Strategies in New Japanese Electric Power Market
Part 3 in a Series on Electric Power in Japan
The pace of learning must accelerate so that players in the new Japanese electric power market are prepared to succeed. For retail entrants, the key will be to diversify, in both the retail and wholesale portions of their business.