Utility retail is at a crossroads. Energy executives must decide which path to follow.

There are only two routes to creating or maintaining shareholder value in competitive retail electricity marketing: double down to grow the business significantly or fold and divest the business from its portfolio. Utilities and their competitive retail affiliates should determine today which of these two strategic bearings they wish to follow. The tentative middle ground of hold is simply a way to postpone the inevitable and erode shareholder value.

How software controls can bridge the gap between wholesale market prices and consumer behavior.

As ideas go, a microgrid is nothing new. Think of steam pipes for district heating in older urban cores. But add a few software controls, and the possibilities grow.

Cash flow reporting is more susceptible to manipulation than investors imagined.

Financial results are the prism through which investors view performance in the world of business. Companies may have tens of thousands of employees supplying tangible goods and services to customers, but real and diverse activities are reduced to relatively few numbers when companies are valued.

It is hard tyo foresee abandoning the discounted cash flow method relied upon so heavily for the past couple of decades.

In the Feb. 15, 2003, edition of , Jonathan Lesser says that regulators need to rethink the traditional discounted cash flow (DCF) method for finding the cost of capital, or "at the very least, regulators should no longer rely solely on the DCF to set allowed returns."

New Positions:

President Bush named Dr. Nils J. Diaz chairman of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), succeeding Richard A. Meserve. Diaz's current NRC term expires in 2006. Diaz also is professor-emeritus of Nuclear Engineering Sciences at the University of Florida.

Pantellos named Jim Neikirk president and CEO. Neikirk spent five years at Entergy Corp. as vice president and chief procurement officer.

The market speaks but we don't listen.

Will someone please tell me: Where is the proof that the electric utility industry needs more investment in electric transmission? Is it not possible that we already have enough miles of high-voltage line?

I can scarcely turn around but see a new conference or workshop on how to encourage the electric industry to invest more in transmission infrastructure. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) leads that charge, though as a regulator it ought to stay neutral.