Commentary

Fifty years ago this July, NASA successfully landed men on the moon and safely returned them to Earth. In this year’s documentary about the mission, Apollo 11 , director Todd Douglas Miller draws on a

It’s no secret that the power industry workforce is aging and managers are struggling to find qualified candidates interested in filling open positions. In my April column, I referenced a

Commercial and industrial (C&I) sites increasingly are looking for ways to increase the reliability and resiliency of their power supply, along with controlling their energy costs. These C&I projects include distribution centers, data centers, office parks, hospitals, college campuses, and also military bases. CleanSpark, a San Diego, California–based technology company which specializes in the optimized […]

While the new Qualified Opportunity Zones (QOZ) program initially has drawn widespread interest regarding real estate development, it also appears likely to generate promising opportunities for green energy

COMMENTARY The 19th-century electrical grid has had a good run in the United States. For more than 100 years, it has reliably provided electricity to end-users based on the premise that a centralized generation and transmission model was the way to go. Large coal, hydro and (later) nuclear generating facilities would produce huge amounts of […]

What keeps you up at night? The question has become cliché as panel moderators now routinely ask it as a “thought-provoking” final query to close out executive roundtable sessions at industry conferences

Colorado lawmakers are considering legislation (HB19-1037) designed to help the state’s investor-owned utilities gracefully back out of non-economic coal-fired power plants. Colorado is at the forefront of

In an apparent attempt to show supporters he is making good on his pledge to revive the dying coal industry, President Trump has been trying to find a way to funnel tens of billions of dollars to a small

If you’ve been following the news, you know that Pacific Gas and Electric Co. (PG&E) recently filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection because it is facing tens of billions of dollars in liability for

America’s energy mix is undergoing a period of rapid change. The way we generate electricity in this country looks dramatically different than it did just a decade ago, as wind and solar have matured and

There is no industry more concerned with continuity of service than the power industry. Maintaining power supply to constituents is the critical mandate of every plant, whether harnessing energy from the sun, wind, water, coal, or nuclear sources. While consistency is a top priority, the plants themselves are often in a state of flux due […]

COMMENTARY On January 29, POWER magazine published a local viewpoint from one of the members of the Diablo Canyon Decommissioning Engagement Panel (DCDEP). In the commentary, Alex Karlin urged the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) to take immediate action to replace the current DCDEP with an independent community advisory panel for purposes of monitoring and […]

Utility-sponsored energy-efficiency programs have always seemed like a contradiction to me. Obviously, power companies make money by selling electricity, so encouraging customers to install energy-efficient

The threat to power grid resilience and reliability due to the continued retirement of coal-fired power plants has generated calls for immediate action. A severe weather event such as the “bomb cyclone” or

COMMENTARY Pacific Gas and Electric Co.’s (PG&E’s) bankruptcy underscores the need for an independent advisory board to monitor, and help San Luis Obispo and the surrounding community navigate through, the Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant decommissioning process. The existing panel—the Diablo Canyon Decommissioning Engagement Panel (DCDEP)—was created by PG&E to serve as a “public relations […]

Izzet Bensusan, managing partner and founder of Captona, a North American-focused investment company that specializes in power generation and energy infrastructure, was a guest on The POWER Podcast. He is very bullish on the renewable energy industry for a variety of reasons. For instance, Bensusan said renewable energy is growing at more than 20% around […]

What is the impact of all electric vehicles (EVs) today and what will be the transformative effect on the grid and energy market? In recent data from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) on plug-in electric vehicles (PEVs) and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEV), the U.S. had 764,666 light-duty vehicles sold (third in sales behind […]

Digital technology is everywhere today including in most power plants. Computer hardware and software are changing the way plants are operated and maintained. Many technology experts will tell you that

For decades the U.S. has relied on coal for much of its energy supply. States with abundant coal—Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Kentucky, and others—have towns and cities whose economies are driven by the coal industry. Now, as the coal industry declines and those areas struggle, the Trump administration wants to use taxpayer money to save coal […]

Power regulation in the U.S. is split between the federal and state levels, with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) having jurisdiction over the wholesale sales of electricity and the states

If you look up the history of users’ groups, you’ll find that many early organizations focused on computers. While it’s hard to confirm all the details, at least one source suggested that the first

Washington state’s latest effort to fight climate change, Initiative 1631 (I-1631), is on the November ballot. With a broad coalition of support from business, environmental, and special interest groups

In the wake of the implementation of the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA), many utilities and their holding companies are experiencing increasing pressure on cash flow due to the elimination of bonus

The Jackson Hole Center for Global Affairs—a bipartisan think tank—will host the “Jackson Hole Global Forum: Climate Solutions, Coal Communities, and Economic Diversification,” in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, November 8–9, 2018. Among the sessions on day one is a panel titled “What Is Coal’s Future?” Charles K. Ebinger, nonresident senior fellow with the Atlantic Council, will […]

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in July issued a long-awaited decision in the case Cooling Water Intake Structure Coalition v. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), upholding the EPA’s

We’ve all heard that phrase about leading or following. In today’s energy world, and more so in tomorrow’s, this saying takes on a new meaning that can be summed up in two words: distributed generation

According to a recent maintenance study published by Plant Engineering, more than 50% of respondents said their plants are still heavily relying on reactive maintenance. However, organizations and industries (including the power industry) have slowly started to move toward a more proactive maintenance approach because of the numerous benefits its implementation provides. This article addresses […]

Unlike their regulated counterparts, merchant power generators have increasingly struggled to compete over the last few years and the outlook for many is that this won’t change any time soon. While regulated power companies often enjoy near monopolies in their respective markets, merchant power companies build out their power generating capacity on a speculative basis […]

Driven by increased energy efficiency and the relocation of electricity-intensive industries, electricity demand and consumption has steadily declined in many developed markets during the last decade, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA). Yet middle- and working-class households, as well as small businesses, are spending more of their income on electricity than their parents’ generation. […]

It is safe to say that all electricity customers want reliable and resilient power service. One way that some end-users are ensuring they get it is by investing in distributed energy resources and building microgrids. But rather than simply using these systems as emergency backups, more and more owners are finding ways to capture economic […]