Capital Reserve Margins: Hardly Adequate
A pseudonymous executive tells why the CCRO's recommendations don't pass muster.
A pseudonymous executive explains why the CCRO’s recommendations on capital adequacy don’t pass muster.
Back to the Ratebase
Utilities are absorbing distressed IPPs, and raising alarm bells in the process.
In 2003, just over 1.4 GW of unregulated generating capacity was converted into rate-based assets. At least another 5.6 GW will be converted soon. What supply procurement practices are appropriate in today’s power market?
Electric Reliability: The Merger Solution
Can economies of scale make the industry more stable?
Utility mergers create exceptional efficiencies, yielding average cost savings of approximately 5 to 10 percent of the combined company’s non-fuel operating expenses. These substantial untapped cost efficiencies could be harvested through more merger-friendly state regulatory policies that would enable utilities to retain these merger cost savings so long as a significant portion was channeled toward infrastructure investment.
Total Recall: Will Competition Be Back?
California anticipates changes in energy policy under its new governor.
The Schwarzenegger administration’s detailed implementation plan is expected by the spring of 2004. Schwarzenegger is committed to restoring confidence in government and improving the business climate, and at the same time taking steps to increase and diversify California’s energy supply and improve the environment.
Perspective: MISO, Markets, and Common Sense
Wisconsinites don't fear 'Day 2.' But let's get the grid rights right.
The cost of rushing into poorly designed LMP-based energy markets may far exceed any purported cost increases attributable to any future delayed start-up date for certain portions of the MISO region.
Integrating Coal and Wind
Strange bedfellows may provide a new supply option.
Joint coal-wind development is not a good greenhouse gas reduction strategy. If carbon limits are imposed on the U.S. electric sector at some future date, nuclear power may be the only viable option for satisfying the country's growing appetite for electricity.
Letters to the Editor
Virginia SCC
The Virginia SCC clarifies factual inaccuracies in January 2004’s columns "Frontlines" and "Commission Watch: Grid Battle Is Joined."
People
People for March 2004.
Positions filled at Allegheny Energy, Constellation NewEnergy, Xcel Energy, and others.
Frontlines: Still More Blackouts?
Do-nothing regulators scare off investment, raising prospects for yet another large-scale power failure.
Let's hope the industry spends the money before Mother Nature throws her next pop quiz.
Europe Rewired: A Giant Awakens
EU nations are taking slow steps toward an integrated energy market, but they are many paces ahead of U.S. efforts.
EU nations are taking slow steps toward an integrated energy market, but they are many paces ahead of U.S. efforts.
Despite recent setbacks in establishing an acceptable balance of voting power among member nations, a new constitution for the European Union (EU) is expected to bring together dozens of separate nations into a single economic and political superpower and lead to an interconnected energy market throughout the European continent-one that will eventually stretch from Portugal to the Baltic Sea and from Ireland to Greece and perhaps beyond.