The Myth of the Transmission Deficit
The grid does not need a Marshall Plan for new investment.
Do we really need to invest $50 billion to $100 billion in the U.S. transmission system? The industry says yes, but the evidence says otherwise.
Energy Tech's Quantum Leap
Tomorrow's utility technology may be revolutionized at the molecular level.
Carbon could revolutionize the electricity industry, thanks to developments in nanotechnology. The Fortnightly looks at how the technology will expand industry possibilities through cables, photovoltaics, and fuel cells.
The Modern Utility: Still a Black Box?
Wall Street bankers say utilities are not effectively telling their story.
How do you value an investor-owned utility? Ever since the Enron debacle, the credit crisis and the economic downturn, many in the investment community say that there exists a need for utilities to better communicate their business vision and corporate model — particularly now that the economy is headed into an economic upswing and utilities will have to compete with higher-yielding financial instruments such as U.S. treasuries, or competing equities with higher-paying dividends.
MISO-PJM Super Region: FERC Makes Companies Pay for RTO Choices
Irregular seams affect ratemaking policies.
In a case that marks the first time FERC eliminated inter-RTO rate pancaking, the commission in late July issued an order terminating regional through-and-out rates (RTORs) charged by two regional transmission owners. The decision removes an estimated $250 million in yearly fees collected by those two entities. But the lost revenue has parties to the proceeding squabbling over many aspects of the case.
Of Blackouts and Belief
Hopes and dreams sag and fail, like an overheated power line.
New policies never come without risk. But energy policy always seems at risk of becoming entranced with the prospects of a single controlling idea.
Combined-Cycle Profitability as a Market Barometer
A hypothetical look at moneymakers across regions.
Given the high degree of ongoing electric market uncertainty, it can be challenging to get a reading on the current and future health of power markets. One way to gauge the health of the generation segment of the electric sector is to simulate the financial performance of a new gas-fired, combined-cycle unit. To perform this analysis, we start with the cost and performance characteristics of a new combined-cycle unit.
People
People for November 1, 2003
New opportunities at the Nuclear Energy Institute, the Analysis Group, Southwest Gas Corp., and others.
Letters to the Editor
Two letters, one correction
Jonathan Jacobs, Managing Consultant at PA Consulting Group, responds to a letter to the editor in the Oct. 1, 2003 issue from Lewis Evans and Kevin Counsell. And former FERC commissioner Matthew Holden Jr. disagrees with John Sillin's commentary in "The Blackout of 2003: Why We Fell Into the Heart of Darkness" in the Sept. 15, 2003 issue.
AEP's Gutsy Gambit
It would join an RTO but dictate the terms — a dangerous game that has the industry talking.
When I talked a few months ago with AEP President and CEO Linn Draper Jr., he discussed how his company would have joined the PJM RTO in March were it not for the backlash he was getting from certain state regulators.
The Finance Forum: Growth in a Back-to-Basics World
Thomas Fanning, executive vice president and CFO, Southern Co.
Interviews by
What next? That seems to be the question on every utility executive's mind. After two years of stomach-wrenching ratings downgrades, agonizing downward valuations, embarrassing accounting scandals, skyrocketing gas prices, and positively stubborn mild weather, or the "perfect storm," as many have called it, many believe the worst is now over.
But will the the recovery be worth the wait?