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What Is a Power Plant Worth?

The consequences of exuberance are all around us.

Investors put $50 billion into new generating capacity because they expected that electricity restructuring would lead to the formation of a small number of effective, regional transmission organizations, which would make the location of a generating facility less important in the future. Based on that assumption, developers placed many plants close to a source of fuel, not close to market. For many companies, that has turned out to be a fatal mistake.
Byline: 

Edward N. Krapels

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Natural Gas and California’s Renewables Portfolio Standard

A successful initiative should reduce state dependence on volatile supplies.

California will save approximately $1 billion in annual natural gas expenditures by 2015 as a result of the RPS. Our modeling efforts indicate that market clearing power prices in California are likely to remain relatively unchanged when comparing the "No RPS" to the "Full RPS" case.
Byline: 

Brandon Owens and Jack Ihle

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People

People for January 2004.

Positions filled at Southern Co., Southwest Power Pool, Avista Corp., and others.
Byline: 

PUF

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FERC Throws Down The Gauntlet

The legal battle of the century is ready to begin.

A FERC order late last year — that AEP must join the PJM grid to meet conditions of its 2000 merger with Central and Southwest Corp. — was tantamount to a declaration of war with state regulators. At the center of the issue is whether FERC has authority to pre-empt the states on development of regional transmission organizations.
Byline: 

Richard Stavros

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Generation Roundtable: Power Flux

Generators struggle to plan for the future as they cope with an unstable present.

Generators struggle to plan for the future as they cope with an unstable present.

When the acting administrator at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Marianne Horinko, signed the EPA's "routine replacement" rule on Aug. 27, 2003, she proclaimed that the new approach to Clean Air Act regulation would "provide … power plants with the regulatory certainty they need."

Byline: 
Michael T. Burr
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New Nuclear Construction: Still on Hold

A number of factors point to expanded nuclear generation. But when?

A number of factors point to expanded nuclear generation. But when?

The role that nuclear power will play in the U.S. electricity generation mix during the coming decades has been a subject of continuing speculation. Few analysts deny the remarkably improved prospects for the existing fleet of reactors: Efficiencies realized by industry consolidation, reactor uprates, and plant license renewals have, in a period of about five years, greatly increased the market value of nuclear plants and the competitive advantage of companies that own them.

Byline: 
Neil J. Numark and Micheal O. Terry
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Frontlines

CERA's Daniel Yergin says global gas markets will define the new century, just as oil did for the last 100 years.

Cambridge Energy Research Associates Chairman Daniel Yergin captures in a few words oil's extraordinary past. Might those words one day describe the next 100 years of natural gas development? Talking with Yergin in early November, I found a man convinced that the forces that shaped a global oil market are at work in shaping a global market for natural gas. I'll be sharing some of his words with you.

Byline: 

Richard Stavros

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People

New Oportunities:

People

New Oportunities:

Philip Carroll Jr. returned to ScottishPower as a non-executive director. According to the Comtex News Network, Carroll left ScottishPower earlier in 2003 to assist with the rebuilding of infrastructure in post-war Iraq.

Chesapeake Utilities hired Joe Steinmetz as its director of Internal Audit. Steinmetz served in the same position with Dover Downs Gaming & Entertainment Inc. and Dover Motorsports Inc. from 2001 to 2003 before being promoted to assisted controller.

Byline: 
Fort Worth Star-Telegram
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