Troubled markets drive defensive tactics.
The credit crisis has split U.S. utility companies into the haves and have-nots. Companies that planned ahead are enjoying the benefits of liquidity, while the rest are struggling to manage their financial risks in a volatile market. Nevertheless, companies across the sector are cutting spending and deferring projects as they weather the storm.
Federal loan guarantees raise hopes for new reactors planned by affiliates of Constellation and NRG.
Federal loan guarantees have been unleashed to support new nuclear plant construction. Will this be the watershed event that finally gets nuclear moving forward in the United States?
The need for many hundreds of billions of dollars in capital expenditures creates huge opportunities and challenges, especially in a more challenging credit environment.
An estimated $900 billion of direct infrastructure investment will be required by electric utilities over the next 15 years, and $750 million already is in place. Nukes, renewables, low-carbon technologies, combined-cycle gas turbines—all have faced cost challenges. The magnitude of the numbers requires a multi-pronged approach.
Experts debate the risks of a proposed acquisition that would increase the largest nuclear fleet in the country.
A new way to measure what matters most: how close a unit comes to meeting its total potential profit.
Business & Money
A spate of proposed U.S. tax rule changes soon may open a window of opportunity for certain utilities.
In the mid-1990s, before the rise of the Internet and the fall of Enron changed the calculus of business investing and the regulatory landscape, the historically staid U.S. utility industry began to be viewed as a "growth play." This triggered a global buying spree that led U.S. companies to invest tens of billions of dollars in electricity generation and distribution businesses all over the world.
U.S. companies' international strategies turn sour, as Europe faces a future with an oligopoly of power companies.
While the European Union is pushing to give all industrial and commercial customers electric choice by 2004, giant incumbent European utilities are increasingly dominating power markets across Europe and the United Kingdom.
El Paso Corp. announced that Britton White Jr. has retired as executive vice president and general counsel. He was appointed to this position after El Paso acquired Tenneco Energy in 1996. Peggy A. Heeg has been named as his replacement. Heeg previously served as senior vice president and deputy general counsel. She joined Tenneco Energy in 1990 and became vice president and associate general counsel for regulated pipelines for El Paso after the merger. El Paso also announced the retirement of David A. Arledge from its board of directors.
Both look overseas for project developers, but some U.S. firms worry they'll miss out.