Citi

Market Resurgence

Banks are reshaping the energy-trading landscape. When the dust settles, utility companies will face different strategic horizons.

Utility executives face volatile energy markets, skyrocketing fuel prices, and changing federal energy policies. How are utilities benefiting from the turnaround in energy trading?

Outsourcing: All It's Cracked Up to Be?

Despite several high-profile deals, utilities remain cautious about outsourcing their key business processes.

It seems that "outsourcing" has become a dirty word among utility executives. But though left unsaid in polite conversation, the word is still on everybody's mind. They might even be doing it. They just aren't talking about it.

LDCs: That Giant Sucking Sound

The consequences of short-sighted rate making.

Gas utilities and state commissions must work together to help preserve rates of return, encourage conservation, and lower customers’ bills.

Transcos Reborn

Recent attrition raises the question: Consolidation or death spiral?

Despite some setbacks, the transco business might be ready to turn the corner toward a new phase of growth. Will the remaining barriers roll away and allow the industry to grow beyond three companies?

The Man Who Would Be King

Exelon Chairman, President, and CEO John W. Rowe, on the proposed merger that would create the largest utility in the United States.

Exelon CEO John W. Rowe would head the largest utility in the industry, if a proposed merger with PSEG goes through. By creating a $40 billion market-capitalization utility, the newly formed company would be 60 percent larger than its nearest market-cap peer, and would have total assets of approximately $79 billion, with almost $25 billion in annual revenues and $3.2 billion in annual net income.

Utilities and BPL: Betting Against the Odds

Why broadband over power line (BPL) can't stand alone as a high-speed Internet offering.

Broadband over power line (BPL) wants to compete with cable modems and DSL for high-speed Internet customers, but BPL providers can make the technology more attractive by bundling the service with other product offerings.

Commission Watch

What everybody missed in setting up the regional grids.

Commission Watch

What everybody missed in setting up the regional grids.

While the electric utility industry has largely agreed on what elements to include in a standard market design (SMD) to govern wholesale power trading in a given region, recent experience shows that the regulators from time to time have overlooked a number of things.

PJM/Midwest Market: Two Rival Groups Battle Over Grid Pricing

Should transmission owners get paid extra for distance and voltage?

While the Midwest now appears set on competitive bidding for the electricity commodity, taking from PJM such tried-and-true elements as locational marginal pricing, financial transmission rights, and a day-ahead market with a security-constrained dispatch, the region remains split over the pricing of transmission.

It's Back

Energy trading returns, healthier and wiser.

As the overall market and, in particular, credit ratings begin to improve, will utilities and other energy players jump back into the energy trading market? Only if the return of trading adds real value to a company.

Commission Watch: The Tyranny of FERC

The commission's power grab over bankruptcy courts condemns merchants to a corporate netherworld.

A new district court decision out of Texas tilts the field in favor of FERC's assertion of exclusive authority over who decides whether a debtor can terminate unprofitable power contracts. For merchant energy companies struggling with dwindling capital and mounting credit risks, this change could mean bankruptcy is no longer a viable option for reorganizing.