From Jet Set to Green Set
Corporate Environmental Programs: How can utility employees participate in greenhouse-gas reduction? Start with sustainable travel programs.
How can utility employees participate in greenhouse-gas reduction?
EPA's Big Bet on Green Trading
Environmental Emissions: The cost to power markets of the Clean Air Interstate Rule depends on the ability to trade mercury.
The decision to limit mercury provides cover for utilities reluctant to spend on controlling NOx and SO2, while boosting other companies
Financing Clean Coal
No single type of financial incentive closes the cost gap between clean coal and modern conventional coal technologies.
How can the cost gap between IGCC plants and pulverized coal plants be closed?
A National Gasification Strategy
Presenting a program to stimulate robust coal-gasification technology deployment at low federal cost.
Federal loan guarantees and other incentives can clear the hurdles to near-term deployment of gasification technologies.
Boardroom Focus: Bringing Insight to Oversight
How to use the board of directors to build a more resilient enterprise.
Utility boards face great uncertainty, heightening the importance of communication between directors and management.
CEO Pay Reflects Strong Stock Performance
The CEO Power Forum: TXU's Wilder nets $55 million package.
Companies continue to embrace the back-to-basics strategy, and investors seem to think that it is paying off.
The Ultimate CEOs
The CEO Power Forum: Not all utility CEOs are created equal...
We talk with Cinergy’s James E. Rogers, DTE Energy’s Anthony F. Earley Jr., Constellation Energy’s Mayo A. Shattuck III, Xcel Energy’s Wayne H. Brunetti, FPL Group Inc.’s Lewis Hay III, and TXU’s C. John Wilder.
Mastering the Mastering Agreement
Special Series Part 5: How to find "commercially reasonable" valuation in power contract terminations.
Contract termination should be easy. Consult the applicable master agreement, calculate the close-out amount, and send or receive a check. If only it were so. In this discussion, we investigate the guidance offered in the key electricity master agreements regarding the calculation of settlement amounts following an event of default and subsequent termination. We also illustrate what we perceive to be a "commercially reasonable" or "good faith" approach to determining settlement amounts.
The Bigger CIS Picture
Data Mining and Warehousing: Many utilities have no ability to turn raw customer information into significant insights about their business.
The customer-information system (CIS) is the system of record for both customer and meter data, and in combination with asset databases, these information repositories comprise the lifeblood of every utility. They usually are not tuned for analysis or for easy reporting, so a single view of the customer and the business processes surrounding the customer does not exist in most of the systems in use today. Many utilities, as a result, are data rich but information poor. Enter the Data Warehouse.
Capacity Markets: A Bridge to Recovery?
A review of the ongoing evolution of market design.
While it appears that capacity markets are here to stay, there is little consensus regarding the best design. Markets in the United States are in a state of flux, with debate raging over many different capacity market pricing schemes. While the winning recipe has yet to be selected, it is likely that participants in certain markets will witness significant changes.