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Threat Level Red

Integrating weather and GIS data for more accurate threat assessments.

Weather and GIS are being combined in new ways to provide better storm threat assessments - helping utilities create increasingly effective battle plans to defend against approaching storms.
Byline: 

Matt Zimmerman and Don Leick

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Reliable But Costly

Recent trends in distribution line undergrounding.

Utility distribution lines increasingly are going underground, but costs are still prohibitive for replacing existing overhead lines.
Byline: 

William Atkinson

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Utility System Hardening

Taking Resiliency One Step Further

An independent system operator for the distribution network could allow utilities to invest in rooftop solar behind the meter and within territory.
Byline: 

Mike Hervey

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Smart by Default

Time-varying rates from the get-go – not just by opt-in.

Default enrollment for time-varying rates, with an opt-out, will reduce peak demand and far more than a default flat rate with a TVR opt-in.
Byline: 

Ahmad Faruqui, Ryan Hledik, and Neil Lessem

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Rooftop Parity

Solar for Everyone, including Utilities

An independent system operator for the distribution network could open more opportunities for distributed energy resources, including rooftop solar.
Byline: 

James Tong and Jon Wellinghoff

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Curing the Death Spiral

Seeking a rate design that recovers costs fairly from customers with rooftop solar.

Load research data shows how utilities can levy a demand charge to recover costs fairly from residential customers with rooftop solar.
Byline: 

Mark Lively and Lorraine Cifuentes

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Utility Capital in the Twenty-First Century

What FERC might learn from Thomas Piketty and his best-selling book on wealth and income.

Thomas Piketty’s best-selling book, “Capital in the Twenty-First Century,” shows why utility transmission owners should not enjoy excessive returns.
Byline: 

David E. Pomper

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Transactions (August 2014)

Wisconsin Energy to acquire Integrys in a transaction valued at $9.1 billion; Dominion to acquire the CID Solar Project from EDF Renewable Energy; Landis+Gyr to acquire GRIDiant Corp.; PPL Corporation and Riverstone Holdings LLC to merge merchant power generation businesses into a new company Talen Energy Corporation; plus debt offerings totaling $1.5 billion.

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People (August 2014)

Chairmen were elected to the Edison Electric Institute, including Theodore Craver (Edison International), Nicholas Akins (American Electric Power) and Thomas Fanning (Southern Co.); ISO New England changed its wholesale market management; Bechtel’s nuclear business line president, Greg Ashley, was elected to the Nuclear Energy Institute’s board of directors and executive committee. And others...
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