A growing movement to bring plug-in hybrid and all-electric cars to market has emerged, bolstered by the undeniable economic and national-security benefits that result from displacing gasoline with electricity. Also, our editor-at-large talks with Tesla Motors CEO Martin Eberhart.

Two cases involving traditional pollutants and climate change are before the court. In addition to questions about the EPA’s regulatory power, both cases raise critical threshold “jurisdictional” questions about the courts’ role in addressing these issues.

To turn efficiency investments into a growing revenue source, strong programs, in conjunction with effective monitoring and verification, are the keys to success.

In October, the North American Electric Reliability Council (NERC) issued its first long-term reliability assessment report in its new role as the nation’s federally mandated reliability organization. The report found that under current trends the U.S. electric power system may not be able to meet customer demand in much of the country 10 years from now.

(December 2006) Charles A. King, California ISO: “Kicked Off and On Schedule” reasonably captures many of the implementation issues and stakeholder concerns surrounding the California Independent System Operator Market Redesign and Technology Upgrade program. However, I was somewhat disappointed that the article offered few details about the benefits MRTU will provide.

FERC Chairman Joseph Kelliher gives mixed signals that leave developers wary of committing to investments in new infrastructure, given his clear desire to affect positive change, while appearing to argue for policy decisions that are politically safe but arguably inconsistent.

While oil and gas prices now are falling after the latest experience with fuel-price volatility, the Global Energy Decision fuels team is focused on modeling an integrated world-wide system of fuel relationships encompassing crude oil, natural gas, coal, and increasingly, synfuels to help our clients assess the implications of fuel-price swings on their businesses. Let’s look at the potential impacts and implications of this growing reliance on liquefied natural gas for North America’s power-generation demand.

FERC demonstrated strong leadership in meeting the aggressive timeline set by Congress for establishing the regulatory basis on which the Electric Reliability Organization will be created. But next summer’s peak-demand season is fast approaching. And much more work remains ahead for the industry to finish the job.

The procurement and supply-chain functions of today’s utility are the Rodney Dangerfield of the utility cost-cutting paradigm: They don’t get any respect. Supply chains in most industries extend beyond sourcing and e-procurement to include planning, inventory optimization, and logistics. When linked together with technology, this creates an “integrated supply chain” that provides visibility from customer to utility to vendors/strategic alliances, generating great value for the company.

NOAA’s measure of heating degree-days between a normal 30-year period and a given test year is consequently too high by 77 degrees when compared with the more accurate hourly estimates for the 30-year period and for the test year. In this case, a hypothetical Northwest utility would see a revenue shortfall of between $2 million and $5 million.