power market design

Peters: The Impact of Ferc Orders on the Value of Bidders in Pjm

Michael Giberson Lon Peters has an article, “The Impact of FERC Orders on the Value of Bidders in PJM,” in the August/September 2009 edition of the Electricity Journal that tries to assess the effects of regulatory actions on the market value of publicly traded companies participating in the PJM wholesale power market. The analytical approach …

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Firstenergy Seeks Switch from Midwest Iso to Pjm

Michael Giberson Platt’s reports: FirstEnergy will switch its Ohio electric transmission assets from the Midwest Independent Transmission System Operator to the PJM Interconnection with its other transmission assets, the Akron, Ohio-based company said Friday. “Aligning all of our transmission assets with PJM will provide customers with the benefits of a more fully developed retail choice …

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Why Arizona Should Encourage Development of a Open, Competitive Electric Power Market

Michael Giberson Stanley Reynolds and Andrew Kleit have made the case for restructuring the electric power industry in Arizona to encourage development of an open, competitive electric power market.  Good stuff.  I’d especially encourage anyone interested in electric power policy to consider the authors’ eight-point list of elements required for a competitive market (pp. 19-20). …

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2009 Power Prices in Ercot’s West Zone: a Mix of Wind Power, Natural Gas Prices, Transmission Constraints, and (inefficient) Congestion Management Practices

Michael Giberson ERCOT reached a new peak load record last week, beating the record set just a week before. Boone Pickens is backing off a little from earlier ambitions to build the world’s largest wind power facility near Pampa, Texas. The Wall Street Journal reported recently that low natural gas prices are limiting interest in …

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Power Consumers in Ercot Should Keep an Eye on Puct Rulemaking Project 34577

Michael Giberson Earlier in July, the Public Utility Commission of Texas issued a proposed amendment to its CREZ regulations (the regulations governing the building of transmission to better support development of renewable energy in Texas). The main focus of the proposal is to refine and clarify the process by which the Commission ensures sufficient renewable …

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FERC Directs New York Power System Operator to Fix “Loop Flow” Scheduling Problem

Michael Giberson Today the FERC approved public release of the results of an internal staff investigation into allegations of “loop flow”-based market manipulations in the New York ISO market (see links below): In this order, we authorize the public disclosure of the attached Office of Enforcement Staff Report (OE Report) addressing its non-public investigation of …

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Connecticut Attorney General Proposes New State Energy Agency to Combat Incentives for Economic Efficiency

Michael Giberson In economic theory, in lab experiments, in practice – pretty much generally speaking – it is well established in economics that a uniform clearing price auction works better than a pay-as-bid auction in cases such as the spot markets for power operated by the NYISO and ISO-New England (and every similar market in …

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No “Magic Number” for Renewable Power

Michael Giberson Peter Behr, reporting for ClimateWire in an article online at the New York Times, captures some of the discussion surrounding the recent NERC report on integrating renewable power to the transmission grid [NERC Press Release] [NERC Executive Summary] [Full NERC Report]. The vast expansion of wind and solar power planned by the Obama …

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Flawed Report, Subsequent Debate Should Advance Understanding of Nyiso Market

Michael Giberson In New York, a debate over the NYISO market design initiated by a report by Robert McCullough and committee hearings in the state legislature. The initial McCullough report asserted that the NYISO’s use of a uniform clearing price auction (the report calls it a “market-clearing price auction”, but “uniform clearing price” is technically …

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Are Wind Power Producers the Low Cost Suppliers of Frequency Control Service in Ercot?

Michael Giberson ERCOT tries to keep the electric power grid in Texas operating at 60 Hertz (i.e., 60 cycles per second, Hertz is abbreviated “Hz”), like the rest of North America, and a few other places in the world.  If electrical load grows faster than power supply, the system frequency will fall below 60 Hz; …

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