Cal-ISO files a new market design, but has it traded efficiency for software?
Eyeing a launch date of November 2007, Cal-ISO at last has come forward with plans for revamping its widely disparaged wholesale market design. The formal proposal, known as the MRTU (Market Redesign and Technology Upgrade), was filed this past February at FERC.
New technologies are helping windpower mature as a viable power supply choice for utilities.
Few people understand how to ride shifting winds better than Jim Dehlsen does. Dehlsen founded Zond Energy Systems 25 years ago, and steered the company through a series of major changes and challenges—the oil-price collapse of the 1980s; ambivalent energy policies, with on-again, off-again production tax credits; and the sale of controlling interests in Zond to Enron in the late 1990s. Should it come as any surprise, then, that Dehlsen still is bullish on windpower’s prospects?
Forget the mega merger as a means to acquire new power plants. FERC’s new rules may offer a better path.
Forget the mega merger as a means to acquire new power plants. FERC’s new rules may offer a better path.
(June 2006) Mirant Corp. appointed Jose (Joey) P. Leviste Jr. as chairman, president, and CEO of Mirant Philippines, and as a senior vice president of Mirant Corp. Ian C. Connor joined Goldman Sachs in 2006 as a managing director in its Power & Energy Group. Unitil Corp. shareholders elected Robert G. Schoenberger, Charles H. Tenney III, and Dr. Sarah P. Voll to its board of directors. Piedmont Natural Gas announced several changes in the company’s executive management team.
Sweeping revisions to Order 888 are needed before true wholesale competition can take place.
There’s been a lot of talk in the industry about new super powers for market enforcement, conferred by Congress on FERC in last year’s energy legislation. But this hasn’t been the case entirely. Many believe that FERC still labors at a disadvantage.
Congress gives FERC an impossible task: Craft long-term transmission rights to save native load from paying grid congestion costs.
If “perfect” be the enemy of the “good,” then look no further for proof than in Federal Power Act section 217(b)(4), enacted by Congress in EPACT 2005.
History teaches us that the most successful American businesses emerge from the crucible of competition.
Important challenges still confront the development of a coherent strategy to create an efficient modern transmission system. Assuming FERC and Congress are earnest about creating a 21st century grid, new ideas, projects, and technologies need to emerge.
The models and motives behind tomorrow’s transmission expansion.
Major transmission projects based on two distinct models are showing signs of life. What can these projects teach us about future transmission investment?
Incentives for transmission investment could boost postage-stamp pricing over license-plate rates.
FERC proposed a new set of regulations, under the new section 219 of the Federal Power Act, explaining in broad outline how it might approve generous financial incentives for new investments in transmission—incentives once dubbed as “candy.” As of mid-January, the new NOPR had spawned more industry comment than just about any other FERC proposal in recent memory.
The absence of long-term transmission rights could exclude potential competition—and cause higher electricity costs.
Power-industry restructuring redistributed financial uncertainties that discourage generation investment and ultimately raise the price of electricity to consumers.