Messing With Texas

Armed with calls for gas price transparency, FERC takes aim at intrastate pipelines—the long-forgotten and largely private preserve of the Lone Star State.

Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) has proposed to bring a modicum of federal oversight to the nation’s intrastate natural-gas pipelines. Given the historical structure and regulation of the nation’s natural-gas industry, it should come as no surprise that FERC’s proposal has polarized the industry in general and the state of Texas in particular.

When the Price Is Right

How to measure hedging effectiveness and regulatory policy.

Hedging programs promise protection against energy-market price spikes, and they can be important to the regulatory goal of sustainable, lowest long-term service cost. But how much price protection is enough in natural-gas markets? What is the most efficient use of risk capital when hedging energy supplies?

The Color of Money

Wall Street sees “green” in demand response, energy efficiency, and distributed generation. Will the industry step up?

We recently conducted research to evaluate whether innovative solutions for meeting future energy needs such as demand response (DR), energy efficiency (EE), and alternative distributed generation (DG) (e.g., photovoltaic cells, wind, energy storage) could become a sustainable and viable part of the future energy infrastructure.

Solve the Seams

The big challenge facing the Northeast energy markets.

The Northeast energy markets are working hard to establish new levels of regional coordination and cooperation. The region’s concerted effort is essential to resolving some of the industry’s toughest issues since the individual markets evolved. These issues include the elimination, reduction, or bridging of seams issues that prevent the economic transfer of capacity and energy between neighboring wholesale electricity markets, or control areas, as a result of incompatible market rules or designs.

A Consuming Passion

Ratepayer advocate Michael Shames has been fighting utilities for a quarter century.

Calling himself the “world’s greatest consumer,” utility watchdog Michael Shames helped in 1981 to create the Utility Consumers’ Action Network (UCAN), where he has served as executive director since 1985. That may make Shames one of, if not the longest-serving ratepayer advocates in the country.

People

(October 2007) J. William Ichord joined Sempra Energy as vice president of government relations. DPL Inc. appointed Frank F. Gallaher to the boards of directors of DPL and The Dayton Power and Light Co. The board of directors of NiSource Inc. elected Deborah S. Coleman, executive vice president and COO of the National Urban League, to the NiSource board of directors. And others...

Recession Reprieve

An economic slowdown might buy time for regulatory change.

Last month’s “Frontlines” column invoked the dreaded “R” word: “recession.” In what turned out to be Executive Editor Richard Stavros’s final column in this space (Richard left the Fortnightly in September to join Dominion Resources in Richmond, Va.), he suggested the industry’s fortunes might actually benefit from an economic downturn, as Wall Street money flees toward defensive investments.

Spaced Out

Geospatial applications are laying the groundwork for the next round of infrastructure development and customer interaction.

As utilities grapple with aging infrastructure and outage management, they are evaluating their GIS and considering the best way to keep up with the shifting demands of the electric-power industry.

Advanced Metering Infrastructure Special Report: A Planning Guide for AMI

How to manage the metering selection process.

The complex process of selecting an AMI system takes considerable time, goes through distinct phases, and is subject to outside influences that will interrupt progress. The authors list several success factors that must be addressed to avoid the risks of poor choices, ruined budgets, and failed implementation.