Commission Watch
The industry requires new analytical tools to incorporate the realities of today's higher risk operating and investment environment into the equity allowance process.
Business & Money
By approaching Sarbanes-Oxley compliance as an opportunity rather than a burden, companies can reap strategic rewards and become stronger.
The stakes have risen in the compliance game. A series of incendiary scandals-followed by the Sarbanes-Oxley Act and its implementing regulations-have focused the scorching light of public scrutiny onto public companies in all industries, and the heat is particularly intense for investor-owned utilities.
Technology Corridor
Has the Aug. 14 blackout finally made it more than a pipe dream?
Former Secretary of Energy Bill Richardson ticked off a whole lot of people in the industry when he pronounced the United States a superpower with "a Third World electricity grid."
Yet while debate continues about the causes of the Northeast blackout, there's no arguing that the majority of transmission and distribution in this country is controlled via mechanical technology largely developed in the 1950s.
Chief tech officers discuss how they are using their data to beat the competitition.
This year's first IT commandment: Use what you've got. And the second is like unto it: Data is king. Those are the strong themes that emerged from this year's CIO Forum. Fortnightly interviewed three chief information officers at three diverse companies: a traditional utility, Cinergy; a merchant generator, Calpine; and an independent system operator (ISO), the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT).
We ask merchant grid developers if anything can ever be done.
The blackout of August 2003 should have come as no surprise. The Department of Energy's May 2002 National Transmission Grid Study finds growing evidence that the U.S. transmission system is in urgent need of modernization.
Utilities that are short on capacity and operate in a stable regulatory environment may be able to extract value from interruptible rates.
Frontlines
The blackout could doom deregulation, but why treat reliability and reform as either-or?
Driving west near Cleveland on the Ohio Turnpike back in August, a few days after the big blackout, I saw what looked like a small helicopter hovering up ahead, about 25 feet from the top of a transmission tower.
Was this a prank? Had terrorists struck? Or was it the local TV news station, just trying to get a closer look?
People
New Positions:
The Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission (PUC) appointed Thomas A. Leach to a two-year term on its Consumers Advisory Council. Leach is the business manager and financial secretary of Local Union 126, International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers.
Perspective
FERC should consider a two-part tariff to boost transmission investment.
Transmission, rather than generation, is generally the constraint preventing customers from getting the power they desire.
Benchmarks
Four factors could lead to further shockwaves.
The Northeast transmission grid has suffered a right cross to the jaw, but it could be followed by an uppercut of price spikes and volatility in generation markets by next summer.
In the wake of August's Northeast blackout, most experts agree that the transmission system in the Northeast has deficiencies.