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Hooking Up

New Entrants, Many Ways to Engage

The ability of new entrants to interconnect new generation on a timely and fair basis is essential during the transition from coal to natural gas and renewables. But how cooperative will incumbents be about it? FERC has always understood that incumbents are incented to frustrate new entry.
Byline: 

Steve Huntoon

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Small Modular Reactors and Path Not Taken

Military Rivalry Fueled Nuclear Program

If we had to choose a new nuclear generating technology today, we would emphasize one that had no potential for catastrophic failure and minimized problems of long term waste storage. Perhaps we should revisit the path not taken: a thorium-fueled nuclear reactor design.
Byline: 

Leonard Hyman and William Tilles

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Vegas Energy, Baby

Las Vegas, model of energy efficiency

Having worked in Nevada for many years, I can assure you that Las Vegas is nothing if not mythical. Let’s break down some of those myths as they pertain to energy usage.
Byline: 

John Hargrove

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Is Customer Activism for Real?

New Business Model, A Balancing Act

The attention given to the new electricity customer seems to overlook the fact that electricity is basically a commodity. And that the average residential customer may in fact be satisfied with electric service and price.
Byline: 

Kenneth Costello

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Innovation and Capital Recovery

A History of Public Utility Regulation

The electric power industry is the key industry in our society. Nothing can function without adequate, reliable, fairly-priced produced and delivered electric service. Getting the capital recovery or depreciation right is not optional.
Byline: 

Branko Terzic

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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.
Byline: 

Branko Terzic

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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.

Byline: 

Steve Mitnick

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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.

Byline: 

Steve Mitnick

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