Just Twelve Days of Rate Cases, We Wish

A favorite carol, slightly reworded for those of us in utility regulation.

On the first day of Christmas
my true love sent to me:
The filing in a new docket

 

On the second day of Christmas
my true love sent to me:
Two cost of capital testimonies
and the filing in a new docket

 

Lights Out at DOE?

Guest Column

Luckily for former Texas Governor Rick Perry, he's not the first nominee to be Secretary of the Department of Energy to call for the abolishment of that department. That honor goes to former Michigan Senator Spencer Abraham who, while a member of the Senate, actually co-sponsored a bill to abolish the Department of Energy!

Abraham writes about this curious episode is his very readable and useful book Lights Out: The Ten Myths About (and Real Solutions to) America's Energy Crisis, St. Martin's Press, 2010.

Night at the Newseum

A night and day of revelations for a part-time Editor-in-Chief and night watchman.

Was I dreaming? Things were slow at Public Utilities Fortnightly. I needed to supplement my Editor-in-Chief pay. 

I applied and, for some reason, was hired as the night watchman at the Newseum. That's the popular interactive museum near the U.S. Capitol on the history of the news and press freedom. 

What happened next is hard to explain. That first night, the Newseum came alive. 

Residential Solar's Share in September 2016 by State

Residential solar’s share of total generation in September was 0.3% nationally, but 2.6% in California, 0.8% in other five states, 0.1% elsewhere.

The Energy Department reported that residential solar generated 981 thousand megawatt-hours of electricity in September. Let's see what was its share of total electric generation, nationally and in key states.

We add together utility scale and distributed generation from all sectors including the residential, commercial and industrial sectors. Total generation in September was 353,484 thousand megawatt-hours.

So, nationally, residential solar's share of total generation was 0.3 percent.

October Electric Bills Below 1.4% of Consumer Expenditures

Less than a seventieth of consumer expenditures is now needed to pay for electricity, in the second of the most affordable periods in history.

The Commerce Department has published detailed consumer expenditure data since 1959, as part of the estimation of the Gross Domestic Product. It published last week the numbers for October of this year.

For just the twenty-fifth month, out of six hundred and ninety-four months since 1959, electric bills fell below 1.4 percent of consumer expenditures.

From January 1959 through October 1999, electric bills had never fallen below 1.4 percent. November 1999 was the first time.

Energy Efficiency

Past as Prologue

More efficient products and services caused 60% to 75% of the increase in energy productivity since 1970. In this, the first of three parts on the history, present situation, and future of energy efficiency, we'll take a macro view of the efficiency industry and how we got here.

A Faster Flight to Value

Collaborating to Get More, Sooner

Imagine five or ten utilities teamed up to advance useful applications of drones to the industry. Whether with drones or some other emerging opportunity, collaboration is a smart path to more value, faster.

Moral Economics and Power

Neo-Liberalism's Consequences

Adam Smith's first book, “The Theory of Moral Sentiments,” argued that people acted not just for money, but also out of professional pride, fairness, patriotism, altruism and other non-economic reasons. Maybe the time has come to revisit Adam Smith and his important first book.