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New England Reaches for the RTO Ring

ISO New England dares to dream, again.

ISO New England wants to become a regional transmission organization. But just the idea — prior to any official filing at FERC — has come under attack. ISO-NE is going to find rough waters ahead, despite a three-year effort aimed at a smooth transition to becoming an RTO. And now with the Oct. 31 filing of the 2,000-plus-page RTO proposal at FERC, the stage is set for these battles to be fought, again.
Byline: 

Lori A. Burkhart

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Time After Time

Regulators are starting to show signs of strain over the restructuring debate.

Up to now, many in the industry thought everybody but the regulators had tired of the constant back-and-forth over regional market issues such as standard market design. This is not to say that state regulators have been able to find any common resolution.
Byline: 

Richard Stavros

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The Myth of the Transmission Deficit

The grid does not need a Marshall Plan for new investment.

Do we really need to invest $50 billion to $100 billion in the U.S. transmission system? The industry says yes, but the evidence says otherwise.
Byline: 

Steve Huntoon & Alexandra Metzner

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MISO-PJM Super Region: FERC Makes Companies Pay for RTO Choices

Irregular seams affect ratemaking policies.

In a case that marks the first time FERC eliminated inter-RTO rate pancaking, the commission in late July issued an order terminating regional through-and-out rates (RTORs) charged by two regional transmission owners. The decision removes an estimated $250 million in yearly fees collected by those two entities. But the lost revenue has parties to the proceeding squabbling over many aspects of the case.
Byline: 

Lori A. Burkhart

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AEP's Gutsy Gambit

It would join an RTO but dictate the terms — a dangerous game that has the industry talking.

When I talked a few months ago with AEP President and CEO Linn Draper Jr., he discussed how his company would have joined the PJM RTO in March were it not for the backlash he was getting from certain state regulators.
Byline: 

Richard Stavros

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The Finance Forum: Growth in a Back-to-Basics World

Financial experts discuss the ongoing recovery in the power industry, and whether better times will live up to investor expectations.

Chief financial officers from Southern Co., FPL, TXU, and Northeast Utilities, and the chief executive officer of Aquila discuss their corporate growth strategies in the context of a more conservative utility environment, and an improvement in the economy.
Byline: 

Richard Stavros

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Blackouts? never Again! (But...)

We ask merchant grid developers if anything can ever be done.

How will technicians prevent another major blackout? Fortnightly weaves the opinions of industry insiders on the keys to electric reliability with a cautionary tale from Connecticut to present solutions for what’s ailing the grid.
Byline: 

Lori A. Burkhart

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 Mistake by the Lake

The blackout could doom deregulation, but why treat reliability and reform as either-or?

The Great Blackout of August 2003 may well spell the doom of deregulation as we know it for the electric industry. Yet I believe that reliability and a move to markets need not be mutually exclusive. Rather, they must march forward together, in step, for either to succeed.
Byline: 

Bruce W. Radford

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Water Heaters to the Rescue: Demand Bidding in Electric Reserve Markets

With just a few changes in reliability rules, regulators could call on consumer loads to boost power reserves for outages and contingencies.

By accommodating loads with limited storage and deploying resources in a more sophisticated manner, grid operators could expand the range of reliability resources. Consider the electric water heater.
Byline: 

Eric Hirst and Brendan Kirby

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