Energy markets – Page 44 – Knowledge Problem

Tres Amigas Wants to Take Cheap Electric Power Away from Hard-Working Texas Families

6 Comments / Electricity, Energy markets, Regulation / By Michael Giberson

Michael Giberson I spent the middle of last week in Austin at the University of Texas-Law conference on wind, solar and geothermal energy law, and as a side bonus got to hear some informal, Austin-based commentary on the Tres Amigas proposal to interconnect the Eastern, Western, and Texas electric grids. It will give you some …

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Shale Gas Supplies and the Alaska Gas Pipeline Question

6 Comments / Energy markets / By Michael Giberson

Michael Giberson For 30 odd years there has been talk of building a natural gas pipeline from the North Slope of Alaska into Canada and down to the lower 48 states. For a time it seemed almost a necessity given the prospects of diminishing gas supplies in the lower 48 and the cost of competing …

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The Revised History of Electric Competition in Lubbock

Electricity, Energy markets, Regulation / By Michael Giberson

Michael Giberson At the time of the initial announcement that Lubbock Power & Light would acquire the distribution assets of competing electric utility Xcel within the city, leaving LP&L as a monopolist, I took note of several inconvenient statements about the benefits of competition included in official LP&L history. (See “The (soon to be revised) …

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How Valuable Will a Monopoly Be to Lubbock Power & Light?

Electricity, Energy markets, Regulation / By Michael Giberson

Michael Giberson After over 90 years of operating in competition with a rival electric utility in town, late last year Lubbock Power & Light and Xcel announced a deal in which municipal electric utility LP&L would buy out Xcel’s distribution assets and customer accounts in the city for $87 million, leaving LP&L as a monopoly …

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Government Sponsored Applied Corporate Research

1 Comment / Energy markets, Politics / By Michael Giberson

Michael Giberson I’m not necessarily opposed to government funding for research, but does General Electric really need taxpayer funds in order to do research on high-temperature electronics intended to support high tech oil and gas drilling? Isn’t this exactly the kind of applied product research that, together, patent protections and markets can manage just fine? …

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Integrating Variable Energy Resources to the Electric Power Grid

2 Comments / Electricity, Energy markets, Environmental policy / By Michael Giberson

Michael Giberson Are their barriers impeding integration of variable energy resources to the electric grid? FERC wants to know: The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (Commission) seeks comment on the extent to which barriers may exist that impede the reliable and efficient integration of variable energy resources (VERs) into the electric grid, and whether reforms are …

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Energy Storage on the Grid: Transmission Equipment or Market Participant? (Again)

1 Comment / Electricity, Energy markets, Regulation / By Michael Giberson

Michael Giberson In the wholesale power markets world, commercial energy storage concepts are commonly somewhat of an afterthought. None of the large regional wholesale power markets integrated into transmission operations put too much effort into thinking about energy storage as they developed their market rules. A part of the problem is that the transmission system …

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The New Pickens Plan Problem

Energy markets, Environmental policy, Politics / By Michael Giberson

Michael Giberson “It’s very hard to move mountains on energy policy, and Pickens has not yet even moved a hill,” said Amy Myers Jaffe, an energy expert at Rice University in Houston. “The problem that Pickens faces is that in this country if you are from the oil industry, people are naturally suspicious of what …

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California’s Solar Hot Water Initiative

3 Comments / Electricity, Energy markets / By Michael Giberson

Michael Giberson Yesterday the California Public Utilities Commission approved a program to subsidize installation of solar hot water heaters. Green Inc. at nytimes.com provides a description of the solar hot water program. The description emphasizes the goals of the program (reduce use of natural gas and electricity to heat water, primarily in order to reduce …

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The Costs of Policy Uncertainty: Venezuela Edition

Energy markets, Politics / By Michael Giberson

Michael Giberson Maybe there is more to this story than “no company with the least respect for stockholders money would invest in Venezuela these days”, but that might be a sufficient explanation. From Bloomberg: Venezuela’s Mariscal Sucre project, which has estimated reserves of 14.7 trillion cubic feet of gas, has failed to attract private interest …

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