Why is Electricity Use No Longer Growing?
Demand growth has been declining steadily now for some 50 years. But why: Price? Self Generation? The Great Recession?
PJM
CPV Closes On Financing for $775M Investment in Charles County, Maryland
Submitted by aburr on Tue, 2014-08-12 12:41Competitive Power Ventures (CPV) and partners Marubeni and Toyota Tsusho closed financing with GE Energy Financial Services and 14 other lenders for the $775 million CPV St. Charles Energy Center under construction in Charles County, Maryland. Financial details were not disclosed. Located 25 miles southeast of Washington, DC, the CPV St. Charles Energy Center is a 725- MW combined-cycle natural gas-fired power plant using two GE 7F.05 gas turbines and a GE D400 steam turbine.
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.
The Powhatan Matter
Market manipulation versus the right to make a profit.
Harvard professor Bill Hogan claims FERC is wrong to find market manipulation where traders simply make profits on market defects known to all.
Unwinding the Death Spiral
Rooftop solar, net metering, and the perils of utilityspeak.
The Sierra Club accuses utilities of trying to snuff out rooftop solar. Attorney Donald Sipe recommends RTO/ISO markets for natural gas.
Life in the Transco Age
The competitive transmission genie is out of the bottle.
FERC Orders 890 and 1000 have opened the doors to independent transcos, heralding an era of innovation to solve reliability and capacity problems.
Digest
ABB commissions microgrid on Portuguese island; Panda orders Siemens generating units for 829-MW plant; Burlington Electric Department enters 54-MW PPA with First Wind; Tantalus and Itron contract for smart metering and smart grid system in Washington; EdF orders 220 MW of wind turbines from Vestas; MidAmerican orders 1,050 MW of wind turbines from Siemens; plus contracts and announcements from GE, PSEG, Arizona Public Service, Dominion, Entergy, Xcel, PSE&G, and others.
Bundled against Change
Mississippi draws a line in the sand.
"We view the [Entergy-ITC] transaction [as] an attempt to extract excess value."-Mississippi PSC
PJM Approves $1.2 Billion in PSE&G Transmission Improvements
Submitted by aburr on Tue, 2013-12-17 13:29PJM approved a $1.2 billion 345-kV double-circuit transmission investment designed to resolve short-circuit concerns in northern New Jersey.
Digest
Siemens and Accenture joint venture on smart grid management systems; CenterPoint picks Itron for RF meter rollout; Memphis picks Elster electric, gas, and water AMI system; TransAlta acquires Wyoming wind farm from NextEra; NRG acquires Edison Mission Energy assets; Google to invest in Imperial Valley solar project; Sempra acquires Nebraska wind project; plus contracts and announcements from Babcock & Wilcox, Echelon, PJM, California ISO, and others.