Generators struggle to plan for the future as they cope with an unstable present.
How far do states rights go in transmission planning?
The grid does not need a Marshall Plan for new investment.
Utilities that are short on capacity and operate in a stable regulatory environment may be able to extract value from interruptible rates.
We ask merchant grid developers if anything can ever be done.
FERC should consider a two-part tariff to boost transmission investment.
The blackout could doom deregulation, but why treat reliability and reform as either-or?
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.
The road to the current reliability crisis is paved with four decades of bad policy decisions.
The technical causes of the great Northeast blackout of August 2003 are coming into focus. For reasons yet unknown as of press time, transmission lines in northern Ohio were lost to the grid, and within seconds 50 million people in the United States and Canada were without power. Soon we will no doubt know the specific reasons for the blackout, and technical corrections and improvements will be made.
With just a few changes in reliability rules, regulators could call on consumer loads to boost power reserves for outages and contingencies.
In proposing a standard market design (SMD), the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) makes clear that it wants customers to participate in wholesale power markets, such as by bidding an offer to curtail consumption, increase supply, and reduce upward pressure on prices.
"We believe in the direct approach of letting demand bid in the market," says FERC.