A rebuttal to conclusions made in three Fortnightly articles that service quality declined in Ontario because of a performance-based regulation plan implementation.

Building upon last month’s installment, more is revealed on how, after 10 years of incentive regulation, reliability has declined in Ontario.

After 10 years of incentive regulation, reliability has declined in Ontario. Regulators failed to enforce service-quality standards, and consumers are suffering as a result.

Sophocles once said, “Quick decisions are unsafe decisions.” Apparently Sophocles did not work in the utility industry. Utilities must make quick decisions every day to maintain a safe and reliable grid. As they have learned, the key to a quick and safe decision is making a well-informed decision. Yet utilities face challenges in providing enough information for their employees and automated systems to make these types of decisions.

Electric utilities are faced with the challenge of managing a range of aging distribution assets that are critical to system reliability. They also are threatened with potentially huge costs as they seek to replace these assets over the coming years to maintain reliability. Making intelligent decisions about asset maintenance and replacement requires accurate information about the failure patterns of these assets over time.

Taming the Wind is a pleasure to read. The article captures just about perfectly the value of forecasting in cost-effectively and reliably integrating wind power, of balancing in large markets, of geographical spread, and more. It also looks at what the future could hold.

Perspective

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

 

Transmission, rather than generation, is generally the constraint preventing customers from getting the power they desire.

News Digest

 

State PUCs

Restructuring Plans. The Ohio PUC denied rehearing of its restructuring order for FirstEnergy issued two months earlier, rejecting arguments by all petitioners-utility, marketers, and consumer watchdog groups.

News Digest

 

News Digest