Two years after 9/11, the industry remains vulnerable.

 

Two years ago the utility industry, like everyone else in America, was blindsided by the terrorist attacks of 9/11. In the aftermath, the rush to secure the grid was on, and the caps on security spending came off-at least for a little while.

Two years later, where are we? Is the grid better protected from attack?

It is, but not by much, according to the experts Fortnightly consulted.

We Can Work It Out

 

 

Solving the industry's problems will require cooperation between the federal government and states.

If we are to successfully forge a new, efficient and customer-focused structure for the electric industry, state and federal regulators must work together to ensure reliable supplies of electricity at the lowest cost possible in markets that are truly competitive and free of market manipulation.

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Regulators will have to decide who pays to upgrade the transmission system.

Declaring Emergencies in California: The Realities of ISO Operation

 

 

Transmission constraints and technology developments may hasten emerging applications.

Sure, superconductor technology might have lots of potential, but it can't do anything for me today.

News Digest

 

 

The data is in. Market power fails as an explanatory variable for episodes of high prices.

The past summer represented a key turning point in our understanding of deregulated wholesale power markets. Until then, it was possible to find major North American markets that lacked any experience with severe price spikes. Now that immunity is denied. Price spikes in California and other Western markets mean that the last regions bucking the trend have fallen in line.

Utility restructuring seems to prompt more lawsuits by customers.

In Chicago, Commonwealth Edison Co. settles a class action lawsuit for a heat-wave outage, paying $2.5 million for items including "food spoilage," to customers served by certain city substations. In California, Pacific Gas & Electric Co. spends $8.3 million to resolve 98 percent of some 6,600 outage-related claims.

California again is the proving ground. Analysts see DG as the biggest issue since the PUC first mapped its "vision" for retail competition.

Hoecker, Trebing see advantages in economies of scale.

Will New York's proposed independent system operator fall victim to the FERC's evolving RTO process?

"It has some conceivable drawbacks," FERC Chairman James J. Hoecker told attendees at the 30th Annual Institute of Public Utilities Conference. "One is that it's a single-state ISO and in the final analysis, regional transmission organizations probably need to cover broader geographical areas."

Hoecker used the forum at the Dec.