A case study from PJM on competitive procurement of regional transmission under FERC Order 1000.
Energen signs stock purchase to sell Alagasco to The Laclede Group; Calpine agrees to sell six power plants to LS Power; Exelon agrees to buy Pepco Holdings Inc.; GE offers to acquire power and grid businesses from Alstom.
Calpine agreed to sell six power plants in its Southeast region to LS Power for $1.57 billion in cash, subject to working capital and other adjustments. Plants sold include: Oneta Energy Center (1,134 MW), Coweta, OK; Carville Energy Center (501 MW), St. Gabriel, LA; Decatur Energy Center (795 MW), Decatur, AL; Hog Bayou Energy Center (237 MW), Mobile, AL; Santa Rosa Energy Center (225 MW), Pace, Florida; Columbia Energy Center (606 MW), Calhoun County, SC.
The competitive transmission genie is out of the bottle.
LS Power to officially open the Arlington Valley (AV) Solar II utility-scale installation in southwest Arizona. Kyocera Solar provided 25 MW of solar modules for the 127-MW PV installation. Block 1 of the five-section installation is now live, with the remaining sections expected to be completed in the fourth quarter of 2013. Once complete, the project’s 127-MW-generating capacity will place it among the largest solar PV installations in North America.
Engineers and constructors adapt to serve an industry in transition.
From gas pipelines to PV arrays, the nation’s contractors are seeing growth in utility infrastructure. Fortnightly talks with executives at engineering and construction firms to learn what kinds of projects are moving forward, where they’re located, and what lies over the horizon.
Analyzing the Order 1000 comply filings from non-RTO regions.
Last fall, utilities across the country began filing tariffs with FERC to explain how they’ll comply with Order 1000. That’s quite a handful, but maybe not a stretch for the RTOs. Not so for the non-RTO regions.
(April 2012) MidAmerican Energy awarded a contract to Siemens Energy to supply wind turbines for its 407-MW project expansion. American Electric Power began operating the 580-MW Dresden natural gas-fired combined-cycle power plant. Duke Energy and ChinaHuaneng Group signed a three-year agreement expanding their research cooperation to include coal and carbon capture and sequestration technologies. And others...
Two Eastern governors make war against markets.
The governors of New Jersey and Maryland have embarked on a crusade that could topple competitive energy markets in their states—and perhaps beyond. Glen R. Thomas, former chairman of the Pennsylvania PUC, challenges policy makers in the two states to stand up for free markets and stop a destructive race to the bottom.
Does the lack of long-term pricing undermine the financing of new power plants?
The PJM Interconnect’s Reliability Pricing Model generally has succeeded in attracting and retaining low-cost generation and demand resources to maintain resource adequacy. But sluggish demand and low prices have weakened the market for long-term capacity contracts. Suppliers aren’t willing to lock in current low prices, and buyers don’t want to pay more for future certainty. Is the market dysfunctional, as some state lawmakers suggest, or does the lack of long-term contracts indicate a rational balance of supply and demand?