Standby Generation: A New Proposition
A cost/benefit analysis of full interconnection of customer-owned standby generators.
Investigating the economic impact of interconnecting a backup generator with a utility-owned power system.
CEO Power Forum: Leadership and Credibility in Uncertain Times
The leaders of the electric power industry greatly want to put a positive spin on the current state of affairs in their business.
Enron’s bankruptcy and California’s failed restructuring experience, as well as credit and shareholder concerns, are preventing senior executives from spending adequate time on developing new growth opportunities for their companies and lobbying for electric industry competition.
Strategy Gurus: Managing Under Chaos
Post-Enron management philosophies for surviving uncertain times.
Dynegy’s Chuck Watson, and other market strategists, talk management philosophy.
Energy Execs: Not Everybody Gets Top Dollar
Compensation is still inconsistent, especially compared with other industries.
A review of CEO and middle management compensation for 2001 finds that salaries are still inconsistent with other industries.
Energy Earnings and FASB: A Volatile Mix
Understanding how the "normal purchase and sale exclusion" under FASB 133 affects earnings volatility.
Understanding how FASB 133 can affect earnings.
Derivatives in the Boardroom?
Positioning the risk professional in the corporate hierarchy.
The complexity of energy business deals begs the need for a new type of corporate officer.
Bursting The Bubble
Merchants' trading volumes and revenue are still too inflated.
In the post-Enron world, many continue to question the legitimacy of the practice of inflating revenues through the trading business to bolster the company's financial picture.
Point-Counterpoint
Letters to the Editor
David Moore: Chris King’s article, “How Competitive Metering Has Failed,” (Nov. 15, 2001) overstates both the weight the CBO report places on the demand side of the electricity market and the importance it assigns to advanced metering therein. King responds: While Mr. Moore and I seem to disagree on the semantics, it appears that we are in violent agreement on the big picture, as stated in the CBO report.
People (June 1, 2002)
Former U.S. Senator Slade Gorton has joined the board of directors of E2I. The National Hydropower Association presented Senator Larry Craig (R-ID) with its Legislator of the Year award . The New York Power Authority honored Shalom Zelingher, director, and Misak Krikorian, senior engineer, of the research and technology development unit of NYPA. And others ...
Electricity Restructuring is No License for Central Planning
RTOs will perpetuate regional monopolies and political rate regulation.
Economists sometimes get confused - especially when the real world doesn't fit into their neat boxes.
Network industries like telephone and electricity are today's case in point. Economists have viewed these parts of the economy as requiring special attention from regulatory authorities. They're viewed as "natural" monopolies displaying "economies of scope" and characterized by risky "lock-in" or "path dependency" features. That supposedly makes them prone to abuse by their free-market owners, and therefore in need of impartial regulatory oversight.