Business

Global solar trade tensions escalated on Friday as the Ministry of Commerce of the People’s Republic of China announced it would launch both anti-dumping and countervailing investigations on imports of solar-grade polysilicon from the U.S. and an anti-dumping probe on South Korean polysilicon imports. Germany on Friday, meanwhile, said it would support its solar industry in anti-dumping action against China.

The $2 billion Potomac Appalachian Transmission Highline (PATH) may be canceled this fall, a project analysis update from PJM Interconnection suggests. The grid operator for 13 states suspended the 765-kV project last year pending further analysis.

Renewable energy sources have increasingly become a focal point of U.S. regulatory and financial institutions as well as trade associations and legislatures. One area of particular interest is programs that have been established by local and state governments to encourage homeowners to become more energy efficient through the use of Property Assessed Clean Energy (“PACE”) loans.

When did the term “management” change from a corporate organizational level to be achieved to a leadership model that must be mastered?

Do you communicate to manipulate or to change behavior?

The U.S. has been blessed with enormous quantities of natural resources yet has long been a net energy importer. The shift from global purchaser to global supplier of fossil fuels is accelerating.

In addition to low prices for coal and natural gas, prices for uranium oxide are also gently falling. New supplies of uranium and enriched fuel should keep nuclear fuel prices stable for years to come.

Some of the ripest targets for cyber soldiers and techno-terrorists are bland, non-descript boxes sitting inside electric utility generating, transmission, and distribution systems, controlling many of the operations of the utilities. The computer technology, once state-of-the-art, is decades old, and that’s part of the problem.

As electric power utilities look ahead, they see the need for major financial investments, but also view a more difficult world in which to raise the needed funds for financing generation and transmission. That’s the conclusion of the 12th annual survey of global power and utility firms by PwC.

In a bid to spur the construction of new power plants and offset a power crunch, the regional grid operator has forecast, the Public Utility Commission (PUC) of Texas last week voted to raise the wholesale price cap for electricity prices on Aug. 1 by 50%, to $4,500/MWh from $3,000/MWh.