Dealing With the Duck
Designing markets to accommodate variable resources.
Growth in variable resources creates an increasing need for demand response and fast-ramping generation. The right market design can bring both.
California ISO
Big Data, Big Change
Analytics chart a path for industry transformation.
“Without integrating operational data with traditional IT data, I don’t think the industry would be any further along than it was five or 10 years ago.”
~Steve Ehrlich, Space Time Insight
Rise of the Machines
Who’s afraid of the transactive grid?
Smart grids and nodal markets spark the emergence of a transactional grid. In fact it’s already happened, and we’re just becoming aware.
Industry in Transition
Utility CEOs face disruptive trends.
Top executives at AEP, the California ISO, and El Paso Electric address key challenges and opportunities.
In the Situation Room
Presidential attention raises the priority level for cybersecurity.
Have industry leaders and regulators turned a corner on efforts to make the grid more secure?
Trading on a Knife Edge
The Deutsche Bank case and the meaning of ‘price manipulation.’
A few months back, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission directed Deutsche Bank Energy Trading LLC to show cause why it shouldn’t be assessed a civil penalty of $1.5 million and be made to return some $123,000 in allegedly unjust profits from power trading in markets run by the California ISO.
Security and the States
The regulator’s role in promoting cybersecurity for the smart grid.
State commissions can select from a toolkit of regulatory approaches to promote desired utility cybersecurity behavior. One approach is to allow the industry to selfregulate, and another approach is to leave the job to the federal government. But sofar, neither the industry nor the federal government have developed and implemented adequate standards for securing the smart grid. States can play a constructive role—albeit perhaps not in the form of traditional regulation.