How do customers react to hourly prices?

As California embarks on a Statewide Pricing Pilot (SPP) for residential and small commercial (200 kW) customers, policymakers and participants in the proceedings are asking several questions:

School plays teach efficiency, creativity, and self-confidence.

Bumbling Melvin Markham is a hero. He just doesn't know it. As the central character in an innovative school play, Melvin learns that everyone can save energy and the environment.

Tidal energy technology improves, but is it enough?

Could ocean energy be the next big thing in renewables?

The San Francisco Board of Supervisors in early May approved a pilot project, estimated at $2 million, to test technology that produces electricity from the tides in the San Francisco Bay.

The city hopes to produce 1 MW with the project and add it to the San Francisco grid by Jan. 1, 2006.

Will dividends become the sole focus for investor valuations of utilities?

With last month's favorable Senate vote to repeal the tax on dividends from 2004-2006 and reduce it 50 percent this year, and the high-profile conference committee meetings between the House and the Senate at press time, many are asking if investors are, or should be, beginning to evaluate utility companies solely on the basis of the dividend.

PJM would dictate grid expansion, even if not needed for reliability, and then push the cost of the upgrades on those who use them the most.

Chairman Pat Wood and his Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) may well have given up on attempts to impose a standard market design (SMD) on the electric utility industry, but that doesn't mean the nation's grid system operators won't try the same thing.

Social and political attitudes toward cheap power were a major obstacle to electricity liberalization in Poland; they also may be one in Russia.

The Feb. 1, 2003, edition of Public Utilities Fortnightly contained a pair of articles (Competition Lost, and Superpower Opportunities) about utilities that invested abroad during the 1990s. The pairing of the articles leads to the question of what can be learned from the past to facilitate investments in future opportunities.

New Positions:

Allegheny Energy named David C. Benson its interim executive vice president, assuming the responsibilities of Allegheny Energy Supply President Michael P. Morrell, who will make use of the company's early retirement option program. Benson has been with Allegheny Energy for 25 years.

Cleco Corp. appointed Stephen M. Carter vice president of regulated generation. Carter earlier served as superintendent of Dolet Hills power station.