Electric Light & Power articles from April 2000

Electric Light & Power archives from April 2000

Aggressive bidding sustains seller's market for generation.(power generation acquistions)(Illustration)(Statistical Data Included)
April 1, 2000... AmerGen, Calpine, El Paso, NRG, PP&L Global, Sithe--these are a few of the most active buyers of generating capacity in the United States during 1999. The total of widely announced acquisitions during 1999 was nearly 36,000 MW. As has been the...

UAE EXPANDS TO THE SOUTHEAST.(United American Energy acquires Mecklenburg Cogeneration)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2000... United American Energy Corp. (UAE) acquired 100 percent ownership of Mecklenburg Cogeneration LP, Clarksville, Va., in May 1999. The plant produces 132 MW of electricity, which it sells to Virginia Power, and up to 130,000 lbs/hr of steam,...

Riding the tiger of change.(American Electric Power, Central and South West merge)
April 1, 2000... IT in mergers and acquisitions What happens when change never seems to end and change-exhaustion threatens to run amok? Often by nature and certainly by occupation, Information Technology (IT) professionals are agents of change--but how...

World electricity consumption to nearly double in 20 years.(Brief Article)(Statistical Data Included)
April 1, 2000... The world's use of energy will continue its rapid growth at least to the year 2020, particularly in the developing nations, according to the Energy Information Administration's (EIA) "International Energy Outlook 2000" (IEO2000). Under current...

Pretty Woman's revenge.(Julia Roberts movie reflects poorly on PG & E)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2000... By now you've probably heard about the new Julia Roberts movie, Erin Brockovich. If you haven't, it's based on the true story of a legal assistant (Brockovich) who in 1992 began helping attorney Ed Masry win a $333 million settlement against...

Entergy buys NYPN's plants.(New York Power Authority)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2000... The New York Power Authority Board of Trustees approved the sale of NYPA's Indian Point 3 and James A. FitzPatrick nuclear plants to Entergy Corp. for $967 million. The sale is expected to close this fall pending regulatory approvals. The...

Management team purchases PECO subsidiary.(Energy Performance Services)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2000... The team that managed PECO Energy Co.'s energy services subsidiary, Energy Performance Services Inc., has purchased controlling interest in the company from PECO and is now trading as Energy Assets. Energy Assets is an energy services company...

DPL & KKR form strategic alliance.(Kohlberg Kravis Roberts and Co.)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2000... DPL Inc., the parent company of the Dayton Power and Light Co, announced the completion of a $550 million investment in the company by affiliates of Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. DPL is using the proceeds, combined with $425 million of...

Reliant acquires Dutch power generator.(Reliant Energy, UNA N.V.)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2000... Reliant Energy purchased the remaining 48 percent of the shares of Dutch power generation company N.V. UNA for about $975 million, increasing its ownership interest in UNA to 100 percent. UNA's 3,400 MW capacity represents nearly 20 percent of...

Northeast Utilities, Yankee merge.(Yankee Energy System)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2000... Northeast Utilities, New England's largest electric utility system, and Yankee Energy System Inc., parent of Yankee Gas Services Co., the state's largest natural gas distribution company, have completed their merger. Yankee's unregulated...

PowerGen to acquire LG&E Energy.(Brief Article)
April 1, 2000... LG&E Energy Corp. signed a definitive merger agreement with PowerGen plc under which PowerGen will acquire all of the outstanding shares of LG&E Energy in an all-cash transaction valued at $3.2 billion. LG&E will become the headquarters of...

People.(appointments and selections in the energy industry)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2000... Utilities & Associations PacifiCorp's president and chief operating officer, Richard T. O'Brien, resigned. The power supply, distribution and transmission businesses, which formerly reported to O'Brien, will now report directly to Alan...

New utility market truths for the next millennium.
April 1, 2000... A number of major strategies for the U.S. power generation industry are being developed in corporate board rooms built around mergers, acquisitions, international project development, and the convergence of fuels, capital and electronic...

Three for the new millennium: EL&P recognizes executives' vision.(Statistical Data Included)
April 1, 2000... Consider all major business transformations in the history of Western Civilization, from the rise of feudalism through the coming biotech age. Each shift has been driven by a few individuals with big ideas, people who were not afraid to...

Memphis Light targets 21st century competitiveness.(Statistical Data Included)
April 1, 2000... EL&P's Utility of the Month for April is Memphis Light, Gas & Water (MLGW) division, a municipal utility serving about 400,000 customers in Memphis and Shelby County, Tenn. MLGW is the largest three-service municipal utility system in the...

Online calculator prevents grid overload, enhances reliability.(Brief Article)(Statistical Data Included)
April 1, 2000... The 17 security coordinators in the Eastern Interconnection, which covers the eastern southern and midwest areas of the United States, received an early Christmas present last fall: delivery of a new online service that promises to make their...

Fiber optics advance to high voltage metering.(Statistical Data Included)
April 1, 2000... The electric power industry is going through a major restructuring at the same time as it is dealing with an aging infrastructure. Increasingly, independent power producers and transmission providers are turning to optical measurement systems...

Major funding fuels biomass gasification.(Brief Article)(Statistical Data Included)
April 1, 2000... Atlanta-based Future Energy Resources Corp. (FERCO) received $16 million from the Turner Foundation and a group of private investors to commercialize FERCO's biomass gasification technology currently in operation at the McNeil Generating...

Partners target DG market.(Brief Article)(Statistical Data Included)
April 1, 2000... Turbo Genset Co. Ltd. signed a memorandum of understanding with DTE Energy Technologies and Pratt & Whitney Canada Corp. for development of a 333 kW generator set. The new product is targeted for distributed generation applications for small to...

IFC boosts fuel cell power.(Brief Article)(Statistical Data Included)
April 1, 2000... International Fuel Cells Inc. has developed the technology to increase the amount of power an automotive fuel cell will produce per liter, also known as fuel cells' power density. The IFC fuel cell generates 1.5 kW of power per liter, which IFC...

Joint venture integrates GIS and automation.(Brief Article)
April 1, 2000... ABB and ESRI are developing a software solution for integrating computer mapping geographic information system capabilities with process control systems, which are used in energy industries to monitor and control plant operations. ESRI will...

EPRI to study power outages.(Brief Article)
April 1, 2000... EPRI launched a two-year program, the Reliability Initiative, to study the root causes of recent power outages and to identify ways to reduce the risk of further problems. EPRI plans to conduct detailed assessments of the three North American...

Hydro-Quebec invests in Capstone.(Brief Article)(Statistical Data Included)
April 1, 2000... Hydro-Quebec CapiTech, a Hydro-Quebec subsidiary, acquired a minority holding of the convertible preferred stocks of Capstone Turbine Corp., Woodland Hills, Calif., for $8 million. Capstone has developed an advanced 30 kW MicroTurbine based on...

UL approves Capstone's fuel delivery system.(Brief Article)
April 1, 2000... Underwriter's Laboratory approved Capstone Turbine Corp.'s low-pressure gaseous fuel delivery system for use within the UL-listed Model 330 Capstone MicroTurbine power generator. Both the low-pressure and high-pressure Capstone. MicroTurbine...

CONSOL Energy receives patent for aggregate process.(Brief Article)
April 1, 2000... CONSOL Energy Inc. received notice that its CONSOL Inc. subsidiary will be granted a patent for its process of manufacturing aggregate from coal combustion byproducts. The technology will be commercialized in a joint venture between CONSOL Inc....

Virtual fish help turbine design.(Brief Article)
April 1, 2000... Voith Hydra is using computational fluid dynamics (OFO) analysis and visualizations to design turbines that are friendlier to fish. In conjunction with the Georgia Institute of Technology, Voith has developed virtual fish that swim in a...

Newgame.com: Changing rules in the utilities industry.(Statistical Data Included)
April 1, 2000... Ask someone to define e-commerce and you're likely to hear the names of ebay, E*TRADE or Amazon invoked. Those are the glamour names, and they have invested heavily to build brand equity and market share. But what ebay has done to centralize a...

Industry merger mania" hits electronic billing.
April 1, 2000... In a billion-dollar deal that ignited the electronic billing presentment and payment (EBPP) market, CheckFree, First Data and Microsoft recently joined forces-a jarring move that shook up stocks, sent analysts scurrying and launched competitors...

Meter-based systems penetration low, potentially dominant.(Brief Article)
April 1, 2000... Information and communications technology may spark a major shift in the balance of power among energy producers, utilities, commercial and industrial customers, and consumers over the next decade, according to a new study by Cambridge Energy...

Southern Ariz. end-users "MakeTheMove" online.(Brief Article)
April 1, 2000... MakeTheMove.com, a Denver-based, online relocation service, announced that it has reached a transaction agreement with Tucson Electric Power Co. (TEP). TEP, which serves more than 300,000 residential and commercial customers in Southern...

Excelergy releases new version of deregulated billing software.(Brief Article)
April 1, 2000... Cambridge, Mass.-based Excelergy Corp. recently released a new version of its advanced billing and customer care software, ABP (Advanced Billing Platform) 3000 version 3.3. ABP 3000 version 3.3 is a complex billing system capable of handling...

Saratoga Systems and New Resources Join Forces.(Brief Article)
April 1, 2000... Campbell, Calif.-based Saratoga Systems Inc., a supplier of enterprise customer relationship management (CRM) software, announced an alliance with Chicago-based New Resources Corp., a systems integrator in the Midwest. As a partner in...

Princeton eCOM announces a 32 percent volume increase.(Brief Article)(Statistical Data Included)
April 1, 2000... Princeton, N.J.-based Princeton eCom, an application service provider in electronic bill presentment and payment, recently announced a 32 percent sequential increase in its presented electronic bills over the Internet Overall, Princeton...

Auctions mitigate transmission access and price risk.(financial transmission rights (FTRs), and Transmission Congestion Contracts (TCCs))
April 1, 2000... Power market participants still shudder when they speak of "the great price spike" in the summer of 1998. Stoically, participants reminisce of heat waves, generating unit outages, transmission constrictions, breaches of contract-and price...

Southern Co. opens energy trading center.(Brief Article)
April 1, 2000... Southern Co., the largest generator of electricity in the United States, recently opened a 24,000-square-foot energy commodity trading floor in Atlanta, Georgia. Nearly 100 traders and 400 support people will work at the center, in one of the...

New Jersey gets less than 1% enrollment in four months.(Brief Article)(Statistical Data Included)
April 1, 2000... Four months after competition was introduced in the Garden State, less than one percent of residential customers have opted to switch their power providers, an analysis by the New Jersey Public Interest Group discovered. John Paul Guinan,...

Telerate to offer non-delayed power data from CalPX.(Brief Article)
April 1, 2000... Telerate, Inc., a subsidiary of Bridge Information Systems, announced an agreement with the California Power Exchange (CalPX)--the biggest electricity exchange in the U.S. and among the 15 largest in the world--to offer non-delayed electricity...

The 'Street gets into oil.(Brief Article)
April 1, 2000... Portsmouth, N.H.-based Houston Street Exchange recently launched one of the first Web exchanges for the trading of crude oil and refined products at the wholesale level. Equiva Trading Company, the trading element of the U.S. downstream...

SunGard introduces first FASB 133-compliant system.(Brief Article)
April 1, 2000... Sungard Energy Systems just introduced one of the first systems on the market today that will enable energy companies to comply with new Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) requirements. FASB issued Statement No. 133, Accounting for...

Nord Pool president joins APX.(Automated Power Exchange Inc. gets Per Hjorth)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2000... Automated Power Exchange Inc. (APX)--which operates Internet-based exchanges and clearinghouses for electricity, energy transmission and market and scheduling services to support power system administration--recently announced that Nord Pool...

Bright lights, no city: Maintenance automation at co-op offers insights in physical asset management.(Brief Article)
April 1, 2000... Among U.S. electric utilities, cooperatives like Hoosier Energy are frequently viewed as small players. Department of Energy (DOE) statistics would appear to agree, showing just 11 percent of the population buying power from over 1,000...

INTERNAL MODEM.(Brief Article)
April 1, 2000... An internal modem option is now available for the 7700 ION three-phase power meter, analyzer and controller. Targeted at transmission and distribution, energy service companies and power marketing applications, the 7700 ION meter with internal...

PROTECTIVE RELAY.(Brief Article)(Statistical Data Included)
April 1, 2000... Brochure showcases the Edison Idea Protective Relay's features, including programmable front panel Hot-Keys to provide instant access to metering, protection and control functions. The unique operator interface and six different application...

RUGGED HANDHELD.(CE5240 and CE5320 handheld computers)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2000... These newest MICROFLEX units, CE5240 and CE5320, powered by Microsoft Windows CE, have the fastest processing speed available today for handheld computers of this category. Windows CE employs widely used and supported platforms: the familiar...

DG SOLUTIONS.(Brief Article)
April 1, 2000... Brochure describes distributed generation solutions. Also provides information on power reliability and continuity, grid interconnect requirements, load management, site monitoring and the importance of preventive maintenance. ASCO offers...

ERGONOMIC CHAIRS.(Brief Article)
April 1, 2000... Performance Plus seating is designed to provide users with maximum comfort and support, be durable enough to withstand heavy use in a tough industrial environment, and remain affordable. Models accommodate most any body size or type, from AAA...

CABLE CONNECTORS.(Brief Article)(Statistical Data Included)
April 1, 2000... Designed to replace standard compression lugs, CYTOLOK Power Bars reduce the time required for installation and cable termination of three phase, pad mounted transformers while providing the reliability of spring compression. Extension spades...

MANAGEMENT METHODS.(Brief Article)
April 1, 2000... REDUCING STRESS IN THE WORKPLACE In the current fast-paced work environment, the phrase 'stressed out' is commonplace. While eliminating stress is virtually impossible, both managers and associates can alleviate the severity of stress and...