Cost

Response to Mitnick Re: What Consumers Want

A response to the Editor-in-Chief column by Steve Mitnick in our May 2016 issue

Unless and until we have access to economic bulk storage, substitution of carbon-free sources for fossil fuels will increase cost significantly. The cost must be borne by some combination of taxpayers and ratepayers.

Byline:

Richard Pierce, Jr.

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Illinois Approach to Regulating Distribution Utility of the Future

Annual formula rate is working to stabilize distribution ratemaking.

A lot has been said of alternative ratemaking approaches. The clearest, most direct path is what has been happening in Illinois, a success by any reasonable measure for a distribution utility.

Byline:

Ross Hemphill and Val Jensen

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Consumers Want What?

Rather than accept the rhetoric, let’s find out.

What’s missing is asking consumers to consider realistic tradeoffs between two characteristics of electricity rather than the desirability of a single characteristic in isolation.

Byline:

Steve Mitnick

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A Rose By Any Other Name: Response to 'Solar Battle Lines'

Vitriol is to exploit the public’s inclination to favor solar to make utilities pay an exorbitant political price to have policy decided on the merits.

If a solar panel owner can sell at bundled retail rate, while generators are paid LMP, this is discriminatory pricing.

Byline:

David Raskin

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Regulatory Roundup

2004 FERC roundup: Path 15 Upgrade; Gas Bypass Pipeline; Power Line Communications; Gen Station Power Needs; ISO Retail Service; Renewable Energy Portfolios; Gas Supply Risk; Fuel Cost Hedging; Utility Supply Solicitations; Provider of Last Resort; Coal Seam Gas; Deceptive Marketing Practices; Renewable Portfolio Standards.

Byline:

Bruce Radford

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Planning vs. Partiality

A case study from PJM on competitive procurement of regional transmission under FERC Order 1000.

What happens to FERC Order 1000, and its vaunted quest for fairness and transparency, when regional grid planners ask for competitive bids to solve a pressing transmission need, but then modify some of the project proposals, unilaterally, in an honest effort to improve them?

Byline:

John Dalton

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Integrated Distribution Planning

An Idea Whose Time Has Come

The next frontier, and the logical extension of integrated resource planning. Self-generation, the connected home, the celebrated internet of things – they all suggest it’s time to focus on the local grid.

Byline:

Paul Alvarez

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Unleashing Energy Efficiency

The Best Way to Comply with EPA’s Clean Power Plan

A framework for measuring the resource value of energy efficiency – touted as the best way for states to comply with the EPA’s Clean Power Plan.

Byline:

Tim Woolf, Erin Malone, Chris Neme, and Robin LeBaron

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Peril at Home

We could see 11-22GW of nuclear facing early retirement in the next 10 years.

The existing U.S. nuclear fleet, representing 100GW or 20% of our electric generation, is in economic peril and in danger of declining even more rapidly than expected.

Byline:

Christopher Dann

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Unwinding the Death Spiral

Rooftop solar, net metering, and the perils of utilityspeak.

The Sierra Club accuses utilities of trying to snuff out rooftop solar. Attorney Donald Sipe recommends RTO/ISO markets for natural gas.

Byline:

Bruce W. Radford

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