Climate Change: The Heat Is On
From reporting to trading, utilities try to meet new expectations.
Implementing a strategy on climate change is a new sign of corporate responsibility, and utilities are responding in a variety of ways.
New Jersey
Close to Load, Far From Consensus
Feds seek plug-and-play for distributed generation, but utilities want the power to stay local.
Pity the poor Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. With its market crusade out of favor, and transmission reform suddenly suspect after the Aug. 14 blackout, it could use a new agenda. Indeed, FERC this past July had proposed a new set of standards for the connection of small- and micro-sized power plants units to regional transmission networks, or even to radial or local distribution lines operating at low voltages.
People
New Positions:
People
New Positions:
AEP named John D. Harper vice president of general services. Harper has been with AEP since 2000, most recently as vice president of corporate technology development.
Paul M. Barbas joined the senior management at Chesapeake Service Co., taking on the role of president. He also becomes vice president of Chesapeake Utilities Corp. Barbas previously was executive vice president of Allegheny Power.
The New Dividend Kings
Sizable gains return to the market.
SNL’s safe dividend picks appeared to do well for any market. However, like the fine golden years of the late ’90s for all things technology, recent months have returned sizable gains to investors of energy stocks—not what one would expect from slow growth, dividend-paying electric and gas utilities that make up the majority of the SNL Energy universe.
People
People for September 2003.
New positions at Mirant, Chesapeake Utilities, Mid-Atlantic Conference of Regulatory Utilities Commissioners, and others.
People
New Positions:
New Positions:
The Allegheny Energy Inc. board of directors named Florida Power & Light Co. President Paul Evanson its new chairman, replacing the retiring Alan J. Noia. Allegheny's interim president, Jay Pifer, assumed the duties of COO at Allegheny. Evanson had been with Florida Power and Light since 1992. He will be replaced temporarily by Lew Hay, chairman and CEO of FPL Group, until a permanent replacement is found.
Gas Pipelines Do the Safety Dance
The industry responds to FERC's new safety regulations.
The industry responds to FERC's new safety regulations.
Utility companies are scrambling to understand and comply with the Pipeline Safety Improvement Act of 2002, which became law in December 2002. According to Daphne Magnuson, director of public relations at the American Gas Association (AGA), the act will require member companies to make significant changes during the next 10 years in how they operate.
Business & Money
Lehman Brothers and others say upcoming rate cases and falling unregulated earnings mean some IOUs will have less to show for their effort.
Business & Money
Lehman Brothers and others say upcoming rate cases and falling unregulated earnings mean some IOUs will have less to show for their effort.
Face-Off: The Renaissance of Nuclear Power
Nuclear power is on the verge of an extraordinary expansion.