Edison Congress
If you’re in operations or engineering at an electric utility, be in the room where it happens.
PUF's Where's Energy
West Virginia Wants You
The Public Service Commission of West Virginia is seeking Utilities Analysts.
Santa Fe Grill
Thirty-four of the nation’s two hundred and three state utility Commissioners. All part of the Commissioners’ Grill, the extraordinary two-and-a-half-hour session that concludes the conference. Current Issues 2023 that is, New Mexico State University’s Center for Public Utilities annual meeting next month in Santa Fe.
Anyone who has ever attended this NMSU event over the years knows there’s nothing like it. Over serious and light-hearted conversations too about utility regulation, you really get to know your colleagues in the service of the public interest.
On the Front Line in Ukraine
Ukraine’s energy security was the topic of the first 2023 online talk by DTEK CEO Maxim Timchenko, on January 25. And Public Utilities Fortnightly’s Editor-in-Chief Lori Burkhart covered it.
DTEK is the largest private investor in Ukraine’s energy sector. As of this discussion, one hundred thirty-three of DTEK’s employees have died, twenty-four are missing, four are in captivity, and three hundred twenty-two have been wounded. Despite that heavy toll, Timchenko is determined to keep the lights on, and looks ahead to rebuilding Ukraine’s energy future.
Natural Gas Price Nosedive, Effects
Prices haven’t been this low since September of 2020. Indeed, except for brief periods over the last twenty years — May 2019 to September 2020, October 2015 to June 2016, February 2012 to April 2012 – natural gas has traded for more than it has been presently since the opening years of this century; usually much more.
January's PPI report
Year-over-year natural gas prices paid by electric generators decreased by 3.3%, reflecting the dramatic drop in natural gas prices that’s going on right now in the commodity markets.
December PPI Data
December’s Producer Price Index report was released last week. The good news in the natural gas commodity markets is now translating to good news for the electric utility industry.
The key indicator is the price trend in natural gas purchases by electric power producers. That price was down 12.4 percent in December year-over-year.
Why does that matter? Because last June that price was up 98.2 percent year-over-year. As recently as September that price was up 40.7 percent year-over-year.
Lowest Income's Electric Bills
In 2021, the average income before taxes of the lowest income households in the U.S. (the lowest quintile) was only one-seventeenth of the income before taxes of the highest income households (the highest quintile). One-seventeenth. That is indeed a very small fraction.
Even after taxes, the average income for the lowest income households was only one-twelfth of the average for the highest income households. One-twelfth. That’s still a very small fraction.
Heroes of the Storms
Read their inspiring stories of restoring the grid and returning electric service.
Oh Henry!
Henry Hub natural gas prices have fallen 63% since August.