Uncertainty clouds direction of FERC’s market engineering.
Some want a tighter grip on generators, but FERC should steer clear.
News Digest
News Digest
State regulators say they won't bargain under "threat of blackouts," but their complaint only highlights how the power is shifting.
The Michigan Public Service Commission is concerned about power supplies this summer - so much so that for the third year in a row it has ordered electric utilities in the state to file plans assessing their generation and transmission capacity for the upcoming summer.
New technologies cloud the future for the traditional electric utility, but offer hope to the gas industry in boosting residential demand.
Investors apparently were paying attention in January when a Web-based analyst predicted Plug Power's stocks could gain 10,000 percent or more by 2010. Before month's end, the fuel cell manufacturer, which doesn't expect to turn a profit before 2004, saw a ninefold increase from the $16 closing day share price at its October initial public offering. That month Avista Corp.
The top traders, investors and managers tell why energy convergence is still a pipe dream.
[Graphic tables included in the print version of the Fortnightly are not included in this electronic version.]
Energy investors seemed less willing in 1999 to greet electric/gas combination mergers with the kind of blind enthusiasm they tended to show in prior years.
Instead, they now demand proof that energy convergence really does create tangible value beyond the mere sum of the parts. At least that's the impression gained from talking with John W.
"Sensible Approach" or Misguided Meddling?
The proposal by Reps. Franks and Meehan to sell federal power at market rates provokes conflicting responses from readers.
I am writing in response to an article written by Reps. Franks and Meehan entitled, "The Sensible Approach: Federal Power at Market Rates," published in the Nov. 1, 1999 edition of Public Utilities Fortnightly (see pp. 44-47). I agree that it is outrageous that electricity services for people in the Northwest are subsidized (regardless of the customers' ability to pay) by the rest of the people in this country.
How the FERC's RTO case has split the PUCs into five warring factions.
With momentum building for competition in retail energy markets, and with the real authority seeming to shift to the federal government, do regulators at the state public utility commissions (PUCs) still have a voice in setting policy for the electric transmission grid? After all, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission enjoys exclusive jurisdiction over interstate transmission service. That's the one major utility sector likely to remain heavily regulated for some time.
