Living on the Edge

Putting natural-gas price volatility into hurricane-season perspective.

The natural-gas and oil price run-up since hurricanes Katrina and Rita has subsided somewhat following a warmer than usual winter, record natural-gas storage levels, and successful conservation instituted by many gas and electric utilities in recent months. However, new sources of supply concern—such as occurred in Europe with accusations of gas-supply withholding between former Cold War adversaries—have rekindled calls for greater diversity of supply across Europe.

Letter to the Editor

Joseph Bowring, PJM Market Monitor: ”Pondering PJM's Energy Price Run-Up” by Howard Spinner of the Virginia State Corporation Commission staff raises the question of whether the observed increase in PJM average system prices in the second half of 2005 was the result of fuel-price increases and increased loads, or the result of market power. The results reported in the Spinner article are incorrect; see PJM Energy Prices—2005: Response to Howard M. Spinner Paper.”

People

(August 2006) Patricia Chadwick, president of Ravengate Partners LLC, has been elected to the board of directors of Wisconsin Energy Corp. Pacific Gas and Electric Co. elected Sanford L. Hartman as vice president and managing director, Law, and Brian K. Cherry as vice president, regulatory relations. Jessie J. Knight Jr. was named to the newly created position of executive vice president of external affairs for Sempra Energy. And others...

Mirror, Mirror

A rash of rate hikes around the country could have utilities facing a public-relations disaster.

Constellation Energy CEO Mayo Shattuck has complained that he and the utility have unfairly been demonized in the public and in the press. In one interview with a Maryland paper, Shattuck showed distress over the verbal abuse his executives had received from angry ratepayers. And who can blame him?

Diamonds in the Rough

Retaining mid-career personnel will be important to a utility’s success.

With upward of 50 percent of the utility industry’s workforce approaching retirement, the industry’s leadership, at all levels, must come to grips with this enormous challenge. This looming demographic challenge is not simply a human-resources problem. For most of the industry, it poses a very real threat to the bottom line and touches upon the fundamental ability of the company to pursue its mission. The path to survival will require non-traditional thinking around all the people levers—staffing, work planning, compensation, work processes, performance management, development, job and organization design, and, most important, leadership.

Watching and Waiting: A Blueprint for Transformer Maintenance

How online monitoring can prevent costly failures.

The march of technology, the urgent call for greater grid investment, and a painful recent past have caught up with the utilities industry. One key area of preventative maintenance for utilities is the transformer, many of which are decades old. Representing approximately $200 billion in investment, these units—which currently number approximately 100,000—can’t be replaced overnight.

A Brief History of Rate Base: Necessary Foundation or Regulatory Misfit?

Regulators today must define earnings for energy retailers virtually bereft of fixed assets.

Applying the traditional rate-base concept to the new hybrid companies is where the gap between the old and the new regulatory paradigms resembles a deep schism. The current shifts in regulation should cause regulators to revisit and reconsider concepts that once reigned supreme in ratemaking.

Defining the New Policy Conflicts

Failing to address and adapt to the new ratemaking realities could result in increased costs for the economy.

The approaching 100th anniversary of regulation by public utility commissions in the United States calls for some reflection. How much have things changed, and how much have they stayed the same?

HR Roundtable: Bridging the Talent Gap

Recruiters and HR consultants see utilities taking an increasingly comprehensive approach to addressing tomorrow’s personnel challenges.

New talent is scarce. And keeping the old talent takes imagination. How are utilities handling changes in personnel markets? We speak with several leading HR consultants to get their views.

Baby Boom Blues

A series of articles, reviews, and strategies for the anticipated utility workforce shortage.

Almost 40 percent of utility workers will become eligible for retirement in the next five years. Assuming only nominal growth, the industry by 2010 will need to hire 10,000 new skilled workers each year. Exacerbating this situation is a host of social and market factors that constrain the supply of skilled workers and make the workforce gap especially challenging for electric and gas utilities.