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Reliability

Prevention Prescriptions

Reliability demands will drive automation investments.

In the days and weeks following Aug. 14, 2003, politicians scrambled to assess blame for the blackouts that plagued the United States and Canada. Even today, as the blame game pro­ceeds, the precise cause of the grid’s collapse remains uncertain. But Republicans, Democrats, and the utility industry alike seem to agree on one thing: the U.S. power grid needs major investment.
Byline: 

Michael T. Burr

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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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Of Blackouts and Belief

Hopes and dreams sag and fail, like an overheated power line.

New policies never come without risk. But energy policy always seems at risk of becoming entranced with the prospects of a single controlling idea.
Byline: 

Richard D. Cudahy

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Customers Interrupted

Utilities that are short on capacity and operate in a stable regulatory environment may be able to extract value from interruptible rates.

The low prices in today’s wholesale electric markets have resulted in a reduction in the value of the retail market-based rates for both the utility and the customer, but utilities that are short on capacity and operate in a stable regulatory environment may be able to extract some value from interruptible rates.
Byline: 

Mike Whitmore

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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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The CIO Forum: Budgets Byte Back

Chief tech officers discuss how they are using their data to beat the competitition.

CIOs from a traditional utility, a merchant generator, and an independent system operator tell how they stretched every penny to make their companies technologically savvy during tough economic times. They say data, not applications, ruled the roost this year—and will in the future
Byline: 

Jennifer Alvey

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Electric Gridlock: A National Solution

FERC should consider a two-part tariff to boost transmission investment.

The existing transmission system was built to connect a utility’s power plants to its customers. It was never designed for getting power from any generator to any customer in a competitive generation market.
Byline: 

Jay Apt and Lester B. Lave

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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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Perspective

Proper authority and market monitoring and mitigation could make the system work.

Perspective

Proper authority and market monitoring and mitigation could make the system work.

 

In the last few years we have watched appalled as the western U.S. electricity markets collapsed, taking with them the solvency and viability of several very large participants, including the California Power Exchange (PX).

Byline: 
Robert C. McDiarmid and N. Beth Emery
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