Separating myth from reality in identifying DG applications.
Frontlines
DSM Revisited
News Digest
Frontlines
Engineers Have Their Day
News Digest
Wait for the "second wave," when new products help suppliers escape the trench warfare of pricing.
State PUCs
T+D Investment Risk. The Maine PUC appeared to take a pro-consumer stance in setting principles it will use to set a revenue requirement for transmission and distribution (T&D) services provided by Bangor Hydro-Electric Co. after the company becomes a wires-only utility on March 1. The PUC downplayed the risk of wires operations, adopting a return on equity of 11 percent and disallowing about $3.5 million of some $71 million in claimed T&D costs.
The "duty to connect" demands definition - such as the optimal investment in local wires, and who should pay for it.
As the electric utility industry continues its slow but inexorable transformation into a more "competitive" industry, there has been a notable absence of discussion concerning continued regulation of local distribution utilities, or discos.
Federal Agencies
NOX EMISSIONS. Generating heavy criticism from industry, on September 24 the Environmental Protection Agency released its long-awaited final rules on nitrogen oxide emissions, outlining a plan to reduce NOx by 28 percent by year 2007 in some 22 states and the District of Columbia, with state implementation plans due by September 1999 and controls in place by 2003, to be carried out through a "cap and trade" program to buy and sell NOx emissions credits.