How to prepare for mandatory enforcement.
FERC staff’s Preliminary Assessment of NERC’s proposed reliability standards identified a number of potential deficiencies, many of which NERC plans to address. What adjustments must be made by users, owners, and operators of the bulk power system in the new era of mandatory compliance?
As NERC’s CIP standards advance, utilities move ahead, haltingly, with implementation.
Utilities are preparing for the eventual enforcement of new reliability rules from the North American Electric Reliability Council. As the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission continues its review of the proposed standards, we take a closer look at the effect of these rules on cyber-security, and offer a broad overview of all of the proposed reliability standards.
Innovation must play a key role in each company.
An EPRI vice president cites areas of concern in each part of the electricity value chain. How can IOUs overcome the formidable difficulties ahead of them?
Climate risks are entering the calculus for utility investment strategies.
Utilities are eager to invest in new power capacity—in part to build rate base and in part because they recognize the danger of relying too much on a single fuel source. Environmental issues, however, are adding greater complexity to company strategies for achieving fuel diversity.
Incandescent light bulbs create a cogeneration benefit by warming the indoor spaces they illuminate.
Genuine price signals about the underlying cost of consumer energy usage are an important part of energy efficiency. With those signals, consumers can adapt to save high-cost energy, while making better use of available low-cost sources and supplies.
Utilities must trim the fat from excessive stock options, stock grants and executive pay.
This month’s cover story focuses on how utilities intend to find the talent they’ll need over the next few years to replace all those retiring baby boomers. And part of that puzzle naturally involves executive pay: how to attract the best and brightest without going overboard on rewards for performance.
(July 2006) The New York Independent System Operator named Rana Mukerji to serve as vice president, market structures. CMS Energy elected Jon E. Barfield as an interim appointee to the company's board of directors and also re-elected 10 incumbents. Pepco Holdings Inc. elected Frank O. Heintz and Lester P. Silverman to the board of directors. TXU Corp. elected the following directors: E. Gail de Planque, Leldon E. Echols, Kerney Laday, Jack E. Little, Gerardo I. Lopez, J.E. Oesterreicher, Michael W. Ranger, Leonard H. Roberts, Glenn F. Tilton, and C. John Wilder. And others...
Wind gains, but won’t soon alter the fuel mix.
Some power markets may be seeing possible signs of recovery. Spark spreads appear to have bottomed out, and reserve margins have begun to fall in some markets. As Figure 1 shows, recovery is uneven, with many regions still experiencing excess supply and a few regions with peak reserves under 10 percent.
Three reasons to make them a permanent part of U.S. energy policy.
For the past decade, the renewable energy industry and various branches of the federal government have engaged in an ungainly, enormously unproductive two-step on production tax credits (PTC) for renewable energy projects, and for wind projects in particular. The PTC can be transformed into a keystone of an effective energy environmental policy. However, to achieve this transformation, the misperceptions must be challenged.
Michael R. Yogg, who manages Putnam's Global Utilities Fund, explains what investors want from the sector.
Is the love affair with utility stocks cooling? A Standard and Poor’s equity research report in late May included a negative outlook for electric utilities: “We think the sector will underperform in 2006, weakened by the rising interest-rate environment,” the report said. But not all investors agree. We talked with veteran portfolio manager Michael R. Yogg of Putnam Investments, who revealed how the modern-day investor views the utilities sector.