Perspective
The appropriate role for ITCs is rather different-and maybe not as exciting-as the role ITC proponents seem to have in mind.
RTO
Transmission Expansion: Risk and Reward in an RTO World
Some thoughts on who should take the lead and how to set up financial incentives.
Some thoughts on who should take the lead and how to set up financial incentives.
One of the most interesting questions that arises from federal restructuring of the electric grid, with regional transmission organizations (RTOs) and a standard market design (SMD), concerns the risk of building transmission in an RTO environment.
Loss Modeling in T&D Systems: Is $25 Billion Worth Losing?
Energy players can lose a lot more than their shirt if they fail to model transmission losses properly.
Public Power & RTOs: How To Avoid Making Swiss Cheese
Several issues need to be addressed before municipals and co-ops participate significantly in regional transmission organizations.
A Vision for Trasmission: How the RTOs Stand
And where the trouble spots lie in FERC's grid plan.
And where the trouble spots lie in FERC's grid plan.
The mood appeared calm on June 26 in Washington, D.C., at the regular bi-weekly meeting of the U.S. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC). Key officials from various regional transmission organizations (RTOs) had gathered before chairman Pat Wood and the other commissioners to brief them on progress over the past year in reforming wholesale electric markets, and on what the FERC might expect in the summer at hand.
Perspective
Independent transmission companies have a role in creating public benefit in wholesale competitive electricity markets.
Electricity Restructuring is No License for Central Planning
RTOs will perpetuate regional monopolies and political rate regulation.
Economists sometimes get confused - especially when the real world doesn't fit into their neat boxes.
Network industries like telephone and electricity are today's case in point. Economists have viewed these parts of the economy as requiring special attention from regulatory authorities. They're viewed as "natural" monopolies displaying "economies of scope" and characterized by risky "lock-in" or "path dependency" features. That supposedly makes them prone to abuse by their free-market owners, and therefore in need of impartial regulatory oversight.
Biting Pat Wood's Hand
FERC finds the states have teeth, too.
FERC Chairman Pat Wood ought to be commended for trying to extend a hand of cooperation to state PUCs. But certainly he must by now understand that the nature of the state regulator, as the nature of the wolf, is unchangeable.
RTOs: The Billion Dollar Advantage
ICF study shows the national benefits of RTOs are too large to be ignored.
Sixty billion dollars in benefits. Less than $6 billion in costs. In any business, those numbers mean just one thing: you've got a winner.
Three-Legged Stool
The smart money now treats transmission as a player. Just like generation. Just like load.
Over at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, new chairman Pat Wood has let it be known if he had been in charge, he would have postponed Order 2000.