AES

The road to the current reliability crisis is paved with four decades of bad policy decisions.

 

The technical causes of the great Northeast blackout of August 2003 are coming into focus. For reasons yet unknown as of press time, transmission lines in northern Ohio were lost to the grid, and within seconds 50 million people in the United States and Canada were without power. Soon we will no doubt know the specific reasons for the blackout, and technical corrections and improvements will be made.

How do customers react to hourly prices?

As California embarks on a Statewide Pricing Pilot (SPP) for residential and small commercial (200 kW) customers, policymakers and participants in the proceedings are asking several questions:

How do customers react to hourly prices?

As California embarks on a Statewide Pricing Pilot (SPP) for residential and small commercial (200 kW) customers, policymakers and participants in the proceedings are asking several questions:

The collapse of wholesale markets has utilities once again making the purchasing decisions, and taking all the risks.

If a common theme is emerging from the various policy directions across the country, it seems to be that responsibility for supply resources is moving away from open markets and back into the hands of load-serving utilities.

An evolving market demands a greater focus on power prices and required return on equity.

Valuation can be difficult even in stable markets, and executives setting their company's strategic course need to understand how the market for power projects is evolving and what may lie ahead.

New Positions:

Dynegy Inc. named Holli C. Nichols its senior vice president and corporate controller. Nichols joined Dynegy in 2000 after working for PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP.

Southern Co. Executive Vice President Leonard J. Haynes was installed as chairman of the board and chief executive officer of the North American Energy Standards Board, succeeding Bill Boswell.

U.S. companies' international strategies turn sour, as Europe faces a future with an oligopoly of power companies.

While the European Union is pushing to give all industrial and commercial customers electric choice by 2004, giant incumbent European utilities are increasingly dominating power markets across Europe and the United Kingdom.