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ONE WONDERS IF BLACKSMITHS AND BUGGY manufacturers more than a century ago ever knew what hit them. New York City in the 19th century had upwards of 200,000 horses to ferry about people and goods. What could possibly disrupt an economic complex built on a wellentrenched reliance on horses for transport? Profound technological innovation, that's what.I was thinking along those lines at the recent...
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KNOCKING DOWN BARRIERS
FEW HAVE EVER BEEN MORE CENTRAL TO such a massive overhaul of such a huge swath of the American economy. Matthew Rogers' business card states he is “senior adviser for Recovery Act implementation, office of the secretary.” He oversees the disbursement of $1.3 billion in federal funds a week, steering it toward projects that the U.S. Department of Energy believes will reshape our energy...
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MAKING THE BUSINESS CASE
BUILDING A BUSINESS CASE FOR SMART GRID investments is a difficult, if not impossible, task in the current regulatory and economic environment. Despite this difficulty, many utilities have made the reasonable presumption that efficiencies do exist, though in uncertain amounts, and have forged ahead. Similarly, the federal government, in the form of stimulus grants, has made a similar recognition...
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ANDEAN NEIGHBORS STEP UP ENERGY DEVELOPMENT
ARGENTINA AND CHILE HAVE MUCH POTENTIAL for developing solar, wind and geothermal resources. Argentina's Patagonia Region, for example, home to the Chubut Wind Power Regional Center, has a theoretical potential for 500 gigawatts of generation.Argentina's electric sector constitutes Latin America's third-largest power market. It relies almost exclusively on gas generation – 54 percent of installed...
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THE GREENING OF PROGRESS ENERGY
POLITICS MAKES FOR STRANGE BEDFELLOWS, even in the utility business. Witness the course Raleigh, N.C.-based Progress Energy is taking. Late last year, the company announced it would close 11 coal-fired power plants by 2017, 30 percent of its coal generation in North Carolina. About seven months ago the company announced plans to spend $900 million to build a natural gas-fueled generation facility...
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Promoting Renewables and Reliability
APPROXIMATELY 260, 000 MEGAWATTS OF NEW renewable generating capacity is projected to come on line over the next decade, according to the North American Electric Reliability Corp. Wind power is predicted to account for as much as 90 percent of this capacity, followed by solar and other natural energy resources such as biomass, geothermal and hydro power. Integrating this renewable energy, however...
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A Matter of Keeping the Lights On
THE STRAINS TO OUR TRANSMISSION SYSTEM HAVE BEEN evident for some time.“The U.S. transmission system is under tremendous strain and only marginally stable,” Wayne Brunetti, the former chief executive officer of Xcel Energy, observed in 2002. “It was designed as a regional system and has been forced to function as a national system, a function for which it was not designed and does not handle very...
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Electing Poles and Wires
WITH AMERICANS CONCERNED ABOUT REDUCING greenhouse gases and combating global climate change, support for renewable energy should be overwhelming, right? In theory, yes. But in reality, there is opposition to aspects of green energy—one example being opposition to the expansion of the electric transmission system needed to move the power. However, a tactical campaign approach to transmission...
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New Directions in Transmission
IN COUNTRIES AROUND THE WORLD, THERE IS A GROWING need to move what is expected to be significant amounts of wind, solar and hydro-generated electricity from sparsely populated remote regions to the cities where demand is great.This has ignited a quest for new high-voltage and ultra high-voltage transmission systems that can carry more electricity longer distances. And to be sure these systems...
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ALL ABOUT FINANCE
REVENUES ARE DOWN, THE RESULT OF ONE OF THE WORST economic downturns in memory. Yet an unprecedented wave of investment waits in the wings, the result of policy directives and public clamoring for renewable power and a 21st century energy infrastructure. EnergyBiz recently sat down with a group of chief financial officers of several utilities to discuss the forces now shaping the future of their...
