When the New Orleans city council held a public meeting last fall to get comments on a controversial $210 million power plant Entergy Corp. wants to build, some 50 demonstrators clad in orange T-shirts and carrying professionally-printed signs showed up in support. Local plant opponents also attended, but the plant supporters outnumbered them. The same … More Entergy stumbles on astroturf
For Scott Hempling, a veteran electric utility regulatory critic, recent activities suggest only a lip-service dedication to capitalism on the part of investor-owned utilities undercut by industry developments. For Branko Terzic, a former state and federal utility regulator and a consultant to investor-owned utilities, current trends suggest that IOUs are need help from regulators as … More Dueling views of electricity regulation and no-fault capitalism
Electric car maker Tesla’s river of red ink continued for the first quarter of 2018, but the losses announced today were less than some analysts expected. The troubled automaker is still bedeviled by an inability to roll out its mid-priced ($35,000) Model 3 at profitable levels, the only path to a sustainable business model. But … More Tesla hangs on in 1Q 2018 with better-than-expected results
The latest ploy the Trump administration is considering to bail out failing coal and nuclear plants in the PJM Interconnection’s competitive wholesale markets is drawing fire from the right and the left. At the behest of Akron-based FirstEnergy, the Department of Energy is reviewing a petition to employ the emergency provisions (Section 202(c)) of the … More FirstEnergy federal bailout slammed from right and left
South Carolina’s two legislative chambers are playing rate cut chicken over rolling back the consumer costs for the failed V.C. Summer nuclear project. The House voted to cut SCANA Corp.’s rates by 18%. The Senate scaled that back to 13%. The House then re-upped the cut to 18%, by a 104-7 vote. Now, as the … More S.C. nuclear snafu stumbles ahead
Some existing U.S. coal and nuclear plants have failed in competitive wholesale markets for several years, mostly for sound commercial reasons. The driving factor has been the astonishing rise of low-cost natural gas, thanks to new technologies. Horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing have turned the tables on electric generation. State and federal subsidies for wind … More No-fault capitalism: Trump, coal, and nukes
Political heat appears to be increasing under an electric policy issue that has been simmering for several years. The issue is changes to the 1978 Public Utilities Regulatory Policies Act (PURPA). Those who want significant changes to the venerable law describe it as “reform.” Opponents more often call it “gutting” the law. PURPA is arguably … More PURPA: Reform or wreck?
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission today formally began a process announced at the end of December during the first meeting chaired by Kevin McIntyre, issuing a notice of inquiry to review the agency’s 1999 policy statement (“Certification of New Interstate Natural Gas Pipeline Facilities – Statement on Policy”) on how it will certify new natural … More FERC embarks on formal review of gas pipeline approval process
Political and economic aftershocks continue from the nuclear expansion woes in South Carolina and Georgia. In the Palmetto State, the 45% minority owner of the abandoned $9 billion, two-unit V.C. Summer nuclear plant, state-owned Santee Cooper, last week filed a motion with the South Carolina Public Service Commission seeking to intervene in the consideration of … More More political and economic fallout from S.C, Ga., nuclear projects
James Robb, picked in March to head the North American Electric Reliability Corp., took office as the CEO of the Atlanta-based reliability overseer of the continental electric grid, on Monday (April 9). He comes to NERC after a sex and domestic violence scandal involving his predecessor, Gerry Cauley, led to a major NERC executive suite … More New NERC leader Robb takes the helm