Like it or not, changes are coming for electric cooperatives. Fewer and bigger might be the inevitable result.
When power planners at Basin Electric Power Cooperative began trying to decide how and where the company's next big power plant would be built, they did what a co-op does best -they reached out and formed a coalition.
Business & Money
Can economies of scale make the industry more stable?
The recent Northeast Blackout framed for regulators and public policy-makers one of the central issues confronting the utility industry: infrastructure reliability and the significant capital investment requirements necessary for improvement. While estimates vary widely, some industry experts currently project that the investment necessary to revitalize and secure the transmission infrastructure in the United States may run in excess of $100 billion.
Business & Money
Is the industry on the verge of a new consolidation wave? Should it be?
New mega-marketers, niche players emphasize opportunity.
After the Shakeout: Another Look at the Georgia Gas Market
By Marija Ilic and Leonard Hyman
Why a standard design in each ISO is no guarantee of regional coordination.
How do you complete an efficient transaction that requires the cooperation of two or more markets when each is operated independently of the other?
How Colorado's settlement in the Xcel merger builds a case for treating needy ratepayers as a separate class entitled to merger benefits.
A shakeout looms for retailers, and familiarity may be an edge.
Industry consolidation may whittle the number of electric and gas suppliers in the United Kingdom to just a handful by 2005, if the expectations of U.K. utilities are correct. Further, many predict that these mega-suppliers will include non-traditional competitors with trusted names - maybe even supermarkets or banks.
Nearly three-quarters of the respondents in a survey of 95 U.K. utilities say they expect just five or seven major power suppliers to emerge during the next five years.