Grid Reform to Date
How the feds opened the supply side.
The sheer scale of growth put a ‘stake through the heart’ of the old view.
Investor-owned utilities
Achieving Interoperability
The smart grid requires utilities and regulators to assert leadership.
Adopting an interoperable framework for the smart grid isn’t just a question of technology standardization. It’s also about navigating the legal, regulatory, and business factors that affect technology implementation. Making the smart grid work will require utilities and regulators to assert leadership.
Black Swans and Turkeys
The industry isn’t as robust as we might think.
Investor-owned utilities might seem fairly robust, but they’re not impervious to unpredictable black-swan events. Ensuring the industry’s survival might depend on our ability to reduce our dependence on fragile and unsustainable regulatory structures.
Dividend Debacle
Investors get caught in partisan crossfire.
Investor-owned utilities get caught in the partisan crossfire, as candidates engage in a national food fight over tax policies.
Beyond Green Hype
Getting realistic about energy efficiency.
Is energy efficiency the answer to all our energy problems? The solution is more complicated than the hype would suggest. Only a practical approach can overcome barriers to capturing efficiency savings as a sustainable resource.
Carbon Wargames
U.S. utilities gain strategic insights by playing out a carbon-constraint scenario.
Uncertainties over natural-gas prices, carbon regulation, and clean-technology alternatives are inhibiting investment in new power plants. An emissions “wargame” from Booz, Allen & Hamilton shows how companies might react to large, multidimensional changes in the generation landscape. The exercise raises strategic questions about competitive positions on the climate battlefront.
The Hidden Costs of Sarbanes-Oxley
Can they be reduced?
The Sarbanes-Oxley Act has cost public companies millions, if not billions, of dollars in extra costs. One must ask: What is the total cost of Sarbanes-Oxley, and is it worth it?
Merchant Power: Ratepayers Back At Risk
A review of power plant deals in 2004 shows that utilities are buying.
Whether evolution or devolution, the merchant deals done to date show movement to a familiar structure; ratepayers are back at risk. While ratepayers have benefitted from merchant plants, they also paid since competition began with PURPA in 1978, and many of the acquisitions put them at risk for future changes in power values and fuel costs.
Power Measurements
IOUs take action, but other overriding forces will affect prices in the near term.
Power Measurement
IOUs take action, but other overriding forces will affect prices in the near term.
It's going to be a wild summer for the Western Electricity Coordinating Council (WECC), courtesy of higher than forecasted load growth, high gas prices, delays and cancellations of renewable resources, and lower than normal hydro generation.
Transmission Investment: All Talk and Little Action
Except for local reinforcements and new generation interconnections, few transmission construction proposals are moving forward.
Except for local reinforcements and new generation interconnections, few transmission construction proposals are moving forward.
There's plenty of talk about transmission, says Theo Mullen. "But real action on transmission construction is scant," he adds. "Conferences and reports abound. Projects of all sizes are being proposed. But, except for local reinforcements and new generation interconnections, few transmission construction proposals are moving forward. The vast majority of larger projects are stalled for lack of financial commitment."1