Michael Giberson Last year the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission ruled that RTO and ISO markets should pay retail consumers an amount equal to the market’s real-time marginal price when consumers reduce consumption at peak periods. Economically speaking, it is the wrong price. Parties opposed to FERC’s action have taken the issue to court. A group of …
Trying to Fix Ferc’s Demand Response Pricing Mistake Read More »
Michael Giberson The Minnesota Supreme Court ruled today that pesticide drifting across property lines onto an organic farmer’s crop does not constitute a trespass under state law. The court dismissed the trespass claim as well as accompanying claims asserting nuisance and negligence under laws that govern organic farming. The organic farming laws regulate what a …
Minnesota Supreme Court Rules Pesticide Drift is Not a Trespass, but Might Be a Nuisance Read More »
Michael Giberson From the New York Times: 2nd Day of Power Failures Cripple Wide Swath of India It had all the makings of a disaster movie: More than half a billion people without power. Trains motionless on the tracks. Miners trapped underground. Subway lines paralyzed. Traffic snarled in much of the national capital. On Tuesday, India suffered the …
India’s Electrical System Produces Largest Power Blackout Ever Read More »
Michael Giberson Lynne’s post on early commerce in ice reminded me that ice making has made other appearances in economic history. For example, some U.S. states once required a state license to make and sell ice. The question of the reasonableness of such licensing requirements reached the Supreme Court in 1932 in New State Ice …
Pierre-Olivier Pineau’s opinion piece in the Montreal Gazette makes a case for greater harmonization of electric power markets among Canadian provinces.
Lynne Kiesling Matt Ridley helpfully points out something that’s grossly underappreciated in the sturm und drang over financial market competition and regulation in the past five years — the lessons of evolutionary biology apply to human-designed systems too, including financial market institutions and regulatory institutions: What is the cure? A change of personnel will not …
In effect, US PREF analyzes subsidies as if the companies, workers, and investors have no alternative prospects for income and would consume less electric power in the absence of subsidies for solar PV projects. In addition, US PREF ignores conventional analytical tools for investment analysis (net present value, for instance) even as it tries to claim that the solar investment tax credit is a good investment. I’d rate the report a FAILED policy analysis.
Lynne Kiesling Friday night’s PBS Newshour had a feature story on the protests in California over the installation of digital electricity meters in the PG&E distribution monopoly service territory. These protests focus on two separate issues: one is a claim that the wireless communications from the meters create electromagnetic fields that harm health, and the …
Michael Giberson The Electric Power Supply Association, “the national trade association representing competitive power suppliers,” supports the use of electric power capacity markets to ensure sufficient generation capacity is available to reliably serve peak consumer load. See, for example, EPSA’s policy paper on the topic: Well-functioning forward capacity markets are a critical component of organized wholesale …
Does Epsa Support Capacity Markets? For Power Markets, Yes; for Gas Pipeline Markets… Read More »
Lynne Kiesling If you’re a Direct TV subscriber, you know that they are embroiled in a contract dispute with Viacom over subscriber fees, which means you haven’t been able to watch Jon Stewart or Stephen Colbert or SpongeBob SquarePants for the past week or so. But is cable/satellite TV becoming an “if it died would …
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