FERC's Folly
Remand Order 745, fix the compensation scheme, but retain federal jurisdiction.
Why the D.C. Circuit should rehear the appeal of FERC Order 745, and how it should rule.
Jon Wellinghoff
Rent the Rooftop
A new front opens in the solar wars.
Has Arizona Public Service found a way to cheat the death spiral?
Waiting for the Next Polar Vortex
How recent events could prove a harbinger of winters to come.
The winter of 2013-14 offered up a perfect storm of natural gas price spikes and threats to electric reliability. Expect more of the same.
Negawhat?
EPSA v. FERC: How the court went wrong on demand response.
The court’s ruling in EPSA v. FERC assigns a retail/wholesale dichotomy to demand response, but is that distinction even meaningful?
In the Crosshairs
Protecting substations and transformers after the PG&E Metcalf attack.
The latest fallout from the April 2013 Metcalf incident: the unprecedented assault with high-powered rifles on PG&E’s Metcalf substation, in Silicon Valley, which disabled 17 of 20 large transformers.
Tranche Warfare
The experts do battle over capacity market design.
A FERC conference this fall aired new major policy options for capacity markets. Amid the battle, ISOs are making tactical adjustments.
Federal Feud
The jurisdictional battle rages on, with FERC and EPA squaring off against the states.
When Revolutionary War veteran Daniel Shays led an attack on the federal Springfield Armory in January 1787—the spark that ignited the federalist movement—he scarcely could’ve guessed that now, 225 years later, his spiritual descendants would still be fighting that very same battle.
RTO Tango
PJM and MISO ran from the altar once before. Now there’s talk of a shotgun wedding.
Utilities in the Midwest ISO want greater access to sell into PJM’s lucrative market. But that might require a virtual merger of the two RTOs — a move rejected seven years ago as too costly, and perhaps still impractical today.
Baghouse Bottleneck
EPA, mercury and electric reliability.
The energy industry has known for decades that federal regulators eventually would set rules under the Clean Air Act to govern emissions of mercury and other air toxics from coal-fired power plants. However, with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency now having issued a final mercury rule, along with guidelines for possible extensions of the compliance deadline, utilities and power plant owners finally have a clear idea what they are up against. And the outlook isn't pretty. The challenge is to retrofit many hundreds of generating plants across the country--and all on the same three-year compliance schedule. Yet two wildcards remain in play: what deference the EPA will give to electric reliability needs, as it "consults" with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) and the North American Electric Reliability Council; and how effective FERC Chairman Jon Wellinghoff will be as Republican leadership in Congress works to derail the new rules.
A Year of Fear
Resuming progress after 2011’s uncertainty.
From the Fukushima disaster and its repercussions, to the raging battle over new EPA regulations, 2011 was one of the most volatile years on record for the electric power business. Will 2012 be better or worse than 2011? Cost factors make this a great time to invest, but overhanging uncertainties might bring another year of fear.