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BIG SPENDING AND GRAND AMBITIONS
ENERGY SECRETARY STEVEN CHU NAILED it. “The grid is the most massive machine we operate,” he said.Chu headlined the hugely successful GridWeek conference in Washington earlier this fall. Some of the news and themes that surfaced at the conference, which attracted a record crowd of 1,400, will continue to resonate with utility executives, policy makers, regulators, vendors and others passionate...
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WINNERS AND LOSERS
ALTHOUGH THE ELECTRIC INDUSTRY HAS endorsed the concept of cap and trade as the least onerous approach to carbon regulation, at least one major company endorses it with unalloyed enthusiasm. Exelon not only supports the idea, it stated in a second-quarter conference call to analysts, which it posted to its Web site, that it expects to see a “$1.1 billion and growing annual upside to Exelon...
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MEASURABLE RAMP UP IN SPENDING?
WITH THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT ISSUING $787 billion in stimulus money and pushing hard for a remaking of the industry, to what extent is stimulus funding speeding up deployment of smart meters and other smart grid elements? Maybe there will be some acceleration, but it hasn't yet started and the stimulating effect is likely to be relatively minor when it does get under way.Taking the issue of...
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CUSTOMER AS KING
ELECTRIC UTILITY RETAIL CUSTOMERS today face possibly the greatest risks and potential cost increases of any generation of American ratepayers. In addition, it is uncertain if the present industry structure or the rules under which it plays will be able to effectively manage these risks for the ultimate benefit of customers.Our nation has developed a patchwork of competitive and noncompetitive...
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RESPONDING TO TOUGH TIMES
RECESSION IS OVER AND RECOVERY IS HERE. And although there's an economic lag, it isn't expected to weigh down the utility industry.In recent years, power companies have paid increasingly higher building costs that have been largely predicated on volatile fuel prices as well as escalating raw material and skilled labor costs. Bleaker economic times, however, have blunted the trauma and led to a...
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JEWEL OF AN EMPIRE
A NUMBER OF PEOPLE AGREE THAT WILLIAM L. Gipson often feels like he is sitting on top of the world. And, he may be, even though his perch is out on the edge of the great U.S. prairie in tiny Joplin, Mo. Its population at last count: 45,500. What may give Bill Gipson, 52, this good feeling is that he is president and CEO of a smallish, yet very finely tuned and successful electric/gas/water...
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States Tackle Diverse Issues
THEY ARE MONITORING MASSIVE FEDERAL STIMULUS funds pouring into states to back energy investments. They are trying to safeguard their states’ interests as the smart grid is erected. They worry about energy prices. State utility regulators are in the hot seat like never before. As Congress and the Obama administration attempt to steer a century-old power industry in new directions, the regulators...
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Implications of Grid Experiment
XCEL ENERGY'S $100-MILLION PLAN TO CONVERT BOULDER, COLO., INTO A “SMARTGRIDCITY” HAS TEETH BUT MAY LACK LEGS.Eighteen months earlier, the utility had picked the university town in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains to showcase the nation's first, fully integrated smart-grid technology. Thousands of electric customers were fitted with smart meters, hundreds of miles of fiberoptic cable were...
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Initiative Seeks Peak Shaving
THE ROCKY MOUNTAIN SECURESMARTGRID INITIATIVE IS a bold plan to form a regional smart grid along the front range of the Rocky Mountains eventually extending from southern Wyoming to southern Colorado. The initiative has been led by Colorado State University and the Fort Collins-based smart grid systems engineering firm Spirae. The initiative is a public-private consortium that currently includes...
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ADDING POWER A FEW MEGAWATTS AT A TIME
ALTHOUGH THE CONSTRUCTION OF ANY new nuclear plant is at least a decade away, power plant owners are slowly adding to the fleet in small increments. A way to increase nuclear generation without turning one spade of dirt has been quietly going on for more than 30 years. The pace of its use has quickened. And while the drive to use it will eventually increase electric generation from that source by...
