Finance

I spent the week before this issue went to press at IHS Energy’s CERAWeek in Houston, listening and talking to many of the attendees representing 55 countries during the annual event that examines strategic

Avoiding what could have been a nasty, expensive fight over costs stemming from the early retirement of the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station (SONGS) last year, plant co-owners Southern California Edison (SCE) and San Diego Gas & Electric (SDG&E) reached a settlement with the state Office of Ratepayer Advocates on March 27 that will potentially […]

Source: POWER During IHS CERAWeek in Houston in early March, POWER Editor Gail Reitenbach sat down with Heiner Markhoff, president and CEO of GE Power & Water’s Water & Process Technologies, to ask him about several issues of concern to power plants.  Though the “water/energy nexus” theme has gained prominence recently, Heiner Markhoff’s comments underscored […]

What’s the utility of the future going to look like within two or three decades? That was a question put to former Duke Energy CEO Jim Rogers, Great Plains CEO Mike Chesser, and former chairman of the Colorado Public Utilities Commission Ron Binz by the head of the Brookings Institute’s Energy Security Initiative (ESI) last […]

A tidal wave of pent-up federal regulations could surge across much of the electricity industry in 2014. In recent years, Congress has been unable to enact new laws in energy, which has led a frustrated

Black & Veatch expects sustained growth across global energy markets in 2014 with several ongoing themes continuing. Key market drivers supporting power infrastructure spend remain the same, centering on

The business environment for generating companies worldwide continues to become increasingly complex, and not just as a result of regulations. Even in the U.S., the concerns and constraints faced by generators

Now more than ever, we see the U.S. power market sharply focused on maximizing return on investment. We see power producers responding to economic uncertainty, high costs for new emission controls, and a

This is expected to be the year when modest economic growth at last returns to a recession-hit Europe. Recent depressed power demand from industry has already allowed the 27 countries of the European Union

Thanks to sustained and rapid development of China’s economy, demand for natural gas has been increasing. From 2000 to 2010, China’s demand for natural gas increased from 24.7 billion cubic meters (bcm) to

It seemed like a good idea at the time. About 10 years ago, large investment banks that had long traded in energy commodities and derivatives, including playing in the wholesale, organized electric markets regulated by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), concluded that it made sense to combine physical assets—power plants, pipelines, and the like—with […]

A legal tax avoidance tool for small investors in the oil and gas industry is getting a lot of buzz among renewable energy financial gurus and advocates. But are “master limited partnerships” a path to new piles of money for green energy, or just a passing fancy? And should MLPs replace the current panoply of lucrative tax gimmicks available for renewables, or be available on top of such items as the production tax credit, investment tax credits, accelerated depreciation, and state and local renewable energy mandates?

The potential of offshore wind generation in the U.S. is being held back by a regulatory no-man’s-land.

Subsidies for renewable energy projects, a mainstay of U.S. policy for 20 years, is coming to an end. What next?

After a slowdown in the first half of 2012, merger activity in the power sector may be heating up again. One surprising target given the current environment: Coal.

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.

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.

Scaling back and outright expiration of government subsidies will make financing renewable energy projects more difficult in the future, according to experts at the law firm of Mintz Levin Cohn Ferris Glovsky and Popeo. But there will still be a greater appetite for renewables than there is supply, so it should still be possible to find the funds to build the projects.

Consider state clean energy funds as potential replacement funding sources for future clean energy projects.

Despite a quiet 2011, this year promises to be one of the biggest for power industry mergers in quite some time—if FERC lets it happen.

The energy trading business is changing as Wall Street adjusts to the requirements of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act. What does that mean to you?

Public power utilities depend upon access to capital at favorable rates. So the munis pay special attention when Wall Street rating agencies talk about tinkering with how they establish bond ratings for municipal utility projects. Thus, recent moves by Moody’s Investors Service has drawn some fire from public power.

Understanding the reliability and failure mechanisms of photovoltaic modules is crucial to understanding how well they will perform over time. But today there are no test standards in place to judge this crucial issue.

While the vast power of one form of energy below Earth’s crust (tectonic plate shifts) doomed the Fukushima nuclear power plant in Japan last March, using another form—heat and steam—is getting renewed attention in the wake of the Japanese meltdown.

What’s on the agenda for the utility industry today and into the future? Platts and Capgemini asked the industry leadership in their latest survey. The answers revolve around regulation, finance, and human resources.

The devastation in Japan has focused new attention on supply chain issues and the impact of the partial collapse of that country’s manufacturing infrastructure on both Japanese imports and exports.

The winter of 2010-2011 has been a cold one for financing renewable energy projects. That’s the weather report from a recent project financing meeting in New Orleans, a survey of developers and builders done by a large Minnesota construction company, and accounts from those in the financial trenches.

Although it doesn’t get much attention, the world’s first and largest source of renewable electricity, water power, is still a major player on the world stage. Though viewed as politically incorrect by some folks, mostly in the developed world, and despite its well-known environmental impacts, using water to turn turbines to generate electricity represents an attractive way to generate electricity with no fuel costs, even in the U.S. Here’s what’s being talked about in the U.S., India, Turkey, Nigeria, and China.

Despite high-powered congressional legislation in 2005, the U.S. is still unable to site high-voltage interstate transmission lines in a timely fashion. Two new reports suggest ways out of the gridlock.