Electric Light & Power articles from January 2000

Electric Light & Power archives from January 2000

Homemade firecrackers trump Y2K bu2 in millennium rollover.
January 1, 2000... Forget about the Y2K bug--"homemade firecrackers in a plastic bucket that went off' at the base of a transmission tower briefly blinked the lights just before midnight on New Year's Eve in 4,000 homes served by Commonwealth Edison (ComEd)....

Internet sparks explosion in power demand.(Brief Article)
January 1, 2000... When Business Week magazine asked General Electric CEO Jack Welch recently to rank the Internet on his company's agenda, he said, "In terms of priority, it's number one, two, three and four." One can easily imagine how the Internet might...

AULD LANG SYNE TO Y2K BUG.(Brief Article)
January 1, 2000... The Public Service Company of Oklahoma (PSO), Tulsa, Okla., ushered in the new year without Y2K-related incidents, serving as an example of the familiar adage, "no news is good news" -- which continued as a common theme as midnight rolled...

Learning Y2K's lessons.(Brief Article)
January 1, 2000... By mid-morning on New Year's Eve, when countries on the other side of the world began making the Y2K transition without apparent trouble, any lingering fears of a Y2K disaster were largely dispelled. Under the piles of confetti and broken...

LETTERS.(Brief Article)
January 1, 2000... Outnumbered by data In your October issue of Electric Light & Power you authored an article on the Best 100 utility companies using Navigant's FERC FORM 1 database. We are a holding company with 3 operating companies and noticed that you...

People and companies.(Brief Article)
January 1, 2000... Utilities & Associations Unicom appointed Elizabeth Anne (Betsy) Moler as senior vice president for federal government affairs. Currently an attorney in private practice in Washington, D.C., Moler is a former chair of the Federal Energy...

Sithe adds 21 Mid-Atlantic plants.(Brief Article)
January 1, 2000... Sithe Energies Inc. purchased 21 non-nuclear power generating plants (total 4,276 MW) from GPU Inc. for $1.67 billion. The transaction more than doubles the company's North American generating capacity to a total of 8,074 MW. The newly acquired...

Dynegy selling plant shares to El Paso.(Brief Article)
January 1, 2000... El Paso Energy Corp.'s subsidiary, El Paso Merchant Energy Co., will buy Dynegy's California cogeneration plants for $255 million. The Dynegy assets provide El Paso with part ownership in 11 gas-fired power generation plants and a combined...

Reliant to sell Latin American investments.(Brief Article)
January 1, 2000... Reliant Energy retained an investment banking firm to help it sell its Latin American investments as part of a change in strategy. Reliant has decided to focus on a strategy toward developing asset-backed trading and marketing in Europe just as...

NRG Energy acquires Conn. generation.(Brief Article)
January 1, 2000... NRG Energy Inc., a wholly owned, nonregulated subsidiary of Northern States Power Co., acquired electric steam generating stations and remote gas turbines totaling 2,235 MW of generating capacity from Connecticut Light & Power Co. The principal...

Edison International buys ComEd generation.(Brief Article)
January 1, 2000... Edison International's recently formed independent power generating unit, Midwest Generation, assumed ownership of Commonwealth Edison's fossil-fuel generating assets (total 9,510 MW for $4.8 billion. The sale included six coal-fired generating...

Duke, Phillips plan new company.(Brief Article)
January 1, 2000... Duke Energy and Phillips Petroleum Co. plan to merge their natural gas units to form one of the nation's largest midstream natural gas liquids business, Duke Energy Field Services. The combined business is expected to have a value of between $5...

Calpine acquires Cogeneration Corp.(Brief Article)
January 1, 2000... Calpine Corp. acquired 80 percent of the common stock of Cogeneration Corporation of America (CGCA) for $146 million, increasing Calpine's gas-fired power production by 20 percent to 2,476 MW of capacity. NRG Energy Inc., a subsidiary of...

Dynegy enters Fla. merchant market.(Brief Article)
January 1, 2000... Dynegy Inc. is developing a 500 MW, gas-fired peaking plant in Osceola County, near Orlando, Fla. Power from the Palmetto project is expected to be sold in Florida's wholesale electric market when startup begins in the summer of 2002. Three gas...

FERC blocks Northeast pipeline project.(Brief Article)
January 1, 2000... FERC decided that Williams, Coastal and National Fuel Gas failed to show there was enough demand for a $1.2 billion pipeline (Independence project) designed to bring natural gas to the Northeast. FERC voted to ask the developers for more...

Midwest utilities propose transmission company.(Brief Article)
January 1, 2000... Commonwealth Edison, MidAmerican Energy Co., IES Utilities and Interstate Power Companies filed a request with FERC for a Declaratory Order Approving a new model of a large-scale, for-profit transmission company, operating under the oversight...

FirstEnergy lights up Atlantic City casinos.(Brief Article)
January 1, 2000... FirstEnergy Services Corp., a subsidiary of FirstEnergy Corp. signed a contract with The Casino Association of New Jersey to supply more than 450 million kWh of electricity after working through a third-party--Energy Purchasing Experts--that...

Leading the charge: skills desired of CEOs change with companies' strategies.
January 1, 2000... Are electric utility CEOs up to the challenges posed by today's era of radical change? Do they have the background and skills needed to lead the multi-faceted transition from monopoly markets to competition? Or must the profile of a successful...

Tracking systems validate electricity claims.
January 1, 2000... As robust competition begins to emerge in restructured electricity markets, the dissemination of electricity information to consumers and regulators will play an increasingly vital role. The need for reliable information, critical to building...

Keeping secrets: utilities deem spending plans hush-hush, boost e-commerce budgets.(Statistical Data Included)
January 1, 2000... Electric utilities are lying low and remaining mum about their capital investment plans. Not eager to "give away the store," detailed information about future generation, transmission and distribution spending is no longer trumpeted. A...

Montana Power's new CIS beats Y2K, unbundling deadlines.(Brief Article)
January 1, 2000... Unbundling utility charges to support deregulation and Y2K demands converged on our legacy customer information system (CIS) almost simultaneously in late 1997. Under the state of Montana's deregulation rules, our combination utility would be...

Madrid on Lake Michigan: Union Fenosa comes to America.(Open Utilities software product)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2000... When utility IT managers think about major enterprise software vendors serving their industry, they usually think of companies from Silicon Valley, perhaps a few from further up the coast, and probably a couple of little European companies like...

Just in Time for AOL.(BillCast platform for EBPP)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2000... The Just in Time Solutions BillCast platform is being implemented on an electronic bill presentment and payment (EBPP) service being developed by America Online Inc. (AOL) and Intuit Inc. Just in Time (www.justintime.com), a San...

Derivion gets Intuit.(Brief Article)
January 1, 2000... Atlanta-based EBPP software company Derivion (www.derivion.com) teamed with Intuit to provide EBPP services to Intuit's Quicken and Quicken.com. Derivion provides turnkey EBPP and customer care services using its inetBiller system, which the...

BPA selects Tenfold.(Brief Article)
January 1, 2000... TenFold Corp. (www.10fold.com) of Salt Lake City was selected by the Bonneville Power Administration (BPA) to build and implement TenFold's SettlementNow! EBPP system for BPA's wholesale electric power and transmission service customers. "Our...

KnowledgeBase bundles Protagona.(Brief Article)
January 1, 2000... KnowledgeBase (www.knowledgebasemarketing.com) of Chapel Hill, N.C., is bundling Recognition Systems Inc.'s Protagona system (www.protagona.com) into its customer relationship management (CRM) solutions. Protagona offers "real-time experience...

Online exchanges electrified with e-crazed bidding for power.(electric electronic commerce driven by natural liquidity)(Industry Overview)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2000... In the dash for electronically traded wholesale and retail power, the rule is: "Be quick or become yesterday's electronic road kill." The digital exchange of electricity through electronic trading systems and exchanges has fast become a...

Allegro Development.(coal trading system)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2000... Allegro Development (www.allegrodevelopment.com)--One of the few to offer a coal trading system. Allegro Natural Gas, Natural Gas Liquids (NGLs), Coal, Crude Oil and Electric Power System(s) manage the buying and selling, generation,...

ALSTOM ESCA.(Brief Article)
January 1, 2000... ALSTOM ESCA (www.esca.com)-ALSTOM's E-terradealmaker is powered by Distributed Event Notification Architecture and features filtering and querying capabilities and book-out functionality to capture upstream and downstream daisy chains.

AMDAX.com.(internet auctions for utility users and sellers)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2000... AMDAX.com (www.amdax.com)--Not a commodities trader, but an interesting new national retail clearinghouse (or auction) where energy suppliers can real-time bid on posted contracts. An Internet-based "virtual" marketplace for commercial,...

ARC Information Technologies.(Brief Article)
January 1, 2000... ARC Information Technologies (www.arcit.com)-ARC's InTENSE (Integrated Trading and Event Notification System for Energy) claims it's a 'bid-to-bill" business-wide system, utilizing a distributed object-based architecture.

Automated Power Exchange Inc.(Brief Article)
January 1, 2000... Automated Power Exchange Inc. (APX) (www.energy-exchange.com)--A privately-held company that operates Internet-based exchanges for the buying and selling of electricity, energy. transmission and related products. This company operates the APX...

Bloomberg.(Brief Article)
January 1, 2000... Bloomberg (www.bloomberg.com)--These Wall Streeters offer Global Tradebook, an electronic platform that interacts with general order flow across the Nasdaq system or specifically accesses liquidity from individual market makers or electronic...

BrightOptions.com.(Brief Article)
January 1, 2000... BrightOptions.com (www.brightoptions.com)--Energy Advisors' new online site for home and business owners that tracks energy suppliers and allows consumers to shop, switch and cost-compare their rates online-all in under ten minutes and at no...

Caminus LLC.(Brief Article)
January 1, 2000... Caminus LLC (www.caminus.com)--These risk wizards offer software branded under Zai*Net, including Zai* Net Manager, Physicals and Risk Analytics for power, gas, crude, refined products, NGLs, coal, [SO.sub.2]/[NO.sub.X] and foreign exchange....

California Power Exchange.(Brief Article)
January 1, 2000... California Power Exchange (CaIPX) (www.capx.com)--CaIPX is a non-profit, public benefit corporation created by the state of California to provide an efficient power marketplace (but regulated by FERC). An open exchange where qualifying traders...

Continental Power Exchange, Inc.(Brief Article)
January 1, 2000... Continental Power Exchange, Inc. (www.cpex.com)--The Catalina energy brokering and trading system features anonymous bidding, counterparty filtering and deal execution. At a user's request, the system alerts voice brokers to negotiate, execute...

Enermetrix.com.(Brief Article)
January 1, 2000... Enermetrix.com (www.enermetrix.com)--Dubbed an "Internet commerce system, Enermetrix.com features a real-time post and bid environment, matching buyers and sellers of retail natural gas and electricity. Claims about 52 clients (including Duke,...

Enron Online.(Brief Article)
January 1, 2000... Enron Online (www.enrononline.com)--An Internet-based transaction system for wholesale energy and other commodities. Allow traders to view commodity prices in real-time and directly transact with Enron free of commission. The company will...

Essential.com.(Brief Article)
January 1, 2000... Essential.com (www.essential.com)--Dubbed an "energy and communications" online superstore, essential.com allows small businesses and individuals to shop for retail energy deals (if in available area). Enter your ZIP code and the New...

Henwood Energy Services.
January 1, 2000... Henwood Energy Services (www.hesinet.com)--The ETRM (Electric Trading and Risk Management) system captures wholesale supply agreements, trade capture, indexes and market data to perform risk management, wholesale scheduling and settlements.

HoustonStreet.com.
January 1, 2000... HoustonStreet.com (www.houstonstreet.com)--Certainly the flashiest of the competitors vying for space on the energy exchange scene, HoustonStreet.com offers a simple Web-based wholesale power auction with no sharp learning curves. Or, as they...

kW International.
January 1, 2000... kW International (www.kwi.co.uk)--kW2000 is a suite of 25 integrated applications, which includes power and gas deal capture, real-time mark-to-market, VaR and other multiple commodity trading and risk management goodies.

Nucleus Corp.
January 1, 2000... Nucleus Corp. (www.nucleuscorp.com)--Houston-based Nucleus' flagship Power Trading System (PTS) is Oracle-based and claims a strong scheduling system which interfaces with counter-parties (for NERC tagging, etc.) and flexibility to schedule any...

New York Mercantile Exchange.
January 1, 2000... New York Mercantile Exchange (NYMEX) (www.nymex.com)--NYMEX utilizes its ACCESS system to give its traders after-hours trading sessions. Plans are currently under way to allow power to trade all-electronic.

OM Technology Energy Systems, Inc.
January 1, 2000... OM Technology Energy Systems, Inc. (www.omgroup.no)--The company's POMAX Trader is a front-office system solution for trading bilaterally or on formal power exchanges.

Open Link Financial, Inc.
January 1, 2000... Open Link Financial, Inc. (www.olf.com)--Open Link's Enterprise features front-office financial and physical deal capture, real-time position management and user-defined pricing curves and volatility.

Orion Systems AS.
January 1, 2000... Orion Systems AS (www.orion.no/english/about/default.htm)--Norway Orion's Trading Desk product provides depth, prices and volumes of the power exchange Nord Pool ASA Primary markets are Scandinavian power markets in Norway, Finland and Denmark....

Powertrade.
January 1, 2000... Powertrade (www.powertrade.com)--The company's INDIGO power trading system is a third-generation integrated financial and physical system for electricity.

SunGard Energy Systems.
January 1, 2000... SunGard Energy Systems(www.sungard.com)--The Epsilon Energy suite (trading, risk & scheduling) and Panorama Energy (trading & risk) offer deal capture and analytics (leveraging Primo and Risk Works acquisitions).

Telerate.
January 1, 2000... Telerate (www.telerate.com)--Initially developed for the Western Systems Power Pool (WSPP), the PowerHub Trading System is available as part of Telerate Energy over the Telerate network or as a stand-alone application via the Internet. Flat...

Tenfold Corporation.
January 1, 2000... Tenfold Corporation (www.10fold.com)--New on industry radar, the company offers TenFold Contract and Fulfillment Manager, an application used to plan, schedule, contract, trade, track, settle, invoice and account for multiple energy commodities...

Triple Point Technology.
January 1, 2000... Triple Point Technology (www.tpt.com)--The FRANKLIN 2000 is an integrated front-to-back office power and natural gas trading system for trade capture, trade processing, position management and credit/client exposure.

Mexico-CalPX Link.
January 1, 2000... The California Power Exchange's (CalPX) electricity marketplace has expanded into Mexico with the addition of Comision Federal de Electricidad (CFE) as a participant in CalPX's spot markets, and the first direct international trade link for...

Maine's main supplier.
January 1, 2000... WPS Energy Services Inc., a subsidiary of WPS Resources Corp. (NYSE: WPS), was selected as a "standard offer" supplier in the Maine Public Service Co. service territory. Starting March 1, 2000, consumers in Maine will be able to choose from a...

Market thunder from "Down Under".
January 1, 2000... An Australian court ruling recently upheld some $625 million in electricity contracts between a retailer and generator, averting a blow to the nation's power market while re-igniting debate on the risks of state utility ownership. The courts...

Powerful settlement.
January 1, 2000... Baltimore Gas and Electric Company (BGE), and its parent holding company, Constellation Energy Group (NYSE: CEG), gained the Maryland Public Service Commission's approval of the utility's electric deregulation settlement. The order guarantees a...

And the winner is ...(NRG Power Marketing signs contract)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2000... In November, NRG Energy, a wholly owned subsidiary of Northern States Power Co. (NYSE: NSP), announced that its power marketing unit, NRG Power Marketing Inc., has been awarded a contract to supply approximately 40 percent of The Connecticut...

Say "hola" to new markets.
January 1, 2000... Duke Energy International (DEI), a subsidiary of Duke Energy (NYSE: DUK), announced that its Argentine affiliates have received all necessary government approvals to commence the physical trading and marketing of electricity and natural gas in...

Neither snow, nor rain, nor sleet ...
January 1, 2000... Koch Energy Trading announced the placement of a $50 million weather bond in November 1999. The three-year transaction is based on the annual performance of a fixed portfolio of 28 weather derivative contracts, each of which is individually...

IT due diligence and M&A integration: how much is enough?
January 1, 2000... Morgan Stanley Dean Witter says that in 1997 the announced global utility industry mergers and acquisition (M&A) volumes were $115 billion, exceeding $90 billion in the United States alone and triple the level of 1989. U.S. utilities are...

If you haven't dropped your laptop yet--you will.(companies develop rugged laptops)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2000... Ruggedization of laptops was once a niche offering by vendors. But now, vendors who originally produced mainly soft environment computers are producing more durable models. The demand for laptops that are damage resistant is the result of the...

Hourly planning saves TVA millions.(Tennessee Valley Authority)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2000... The Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA), one of the largest utilities in the United States, has implemented new operations scheduling software for hourly planning. Savings have come from optimizing the schedule to minimize operating costs....

San Diego's new emergency operations center opens.(San Diego Gas and Electric)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2000... Opened officially November 4, San Diego Gas & Electric's (SDG&E) new $1.5 million state-of-the-art emergency operations center serves as the command post whenever a significant incident impacts the area's electric and natural gas systems. The...

PQ is not only about technology, solutions pivot on economics.(power quality protection equipment)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2000... The robust power quality (PQ) protection equipment market, with total revenues of $1.4 billion in 1998, is the place for suppliers eager to carve out a profitable niche. Frost & Sullivan, an international marketing consulting company, recently...

Current limiter debuts with record HTS coils.(high temperature superconducting)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2000... The Fault Current Limiter (FCL) II device, built under a U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Superconductivity Partnership Initiative (SPI) program for the design, fabrication and testing of a pre-commercial 15 kV-class superconducting current...

Web-based research targets flashovers.(Brief Article)
January 1, 2000... There have been widespread reports of flashovers during operation of distribution cable elbows (separable connectors) and insulated bushing caps. These failures have occurred primarily during routine switching when very small load currents, or...

TVA to produce radioactive gas for weapons.(Tennessee Valley Authority produces tritium)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2000... For the first time in U.S. history, a civilian nuclear plant will be making radioactive tritium for use by the government in manufacturing nuclear weapons. The Tennessee Valley Authority's (TVA) Watts Bar Nuclear Plant near Spring City, Tenn.,...

Companies join forces for industrial power generation.(Flowtronex International, Pratt and Whitney Canada)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2000... Flowtronex International Inc., Tyler, Texas, designer and manufacturer of modular systems, and Pratt & Whitney Canada agreed to package and market modular pumping, gas compression and power generation systems. The turnkey systems will...

GE introduces newest F technology gas turbine.(GE Power Systems)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2000... GE Power Systems recently introduced the MS7001FB, the newest member of its F technology family of gas turbines. The STAG 107FB will have a combined-cycle thermal efficiency of 57.3 percent, an improvement of more than two percent compared to...

Pirelli boosts investment in HTS power cables.(Pirelli Cables and Systems, high temp superconducting)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2000... Pirelli Cables and Systems will provide up 40 $13.8 million in additional funding to American Superconductor Corp. for the development of high temperature super-conducting (HTS) wires for use in power cables. The companies also agreed to...

ComEd adds high-voltage underground cable.(Commonwealth Edison)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2000... Commonwealth Edison Co. awarded W.A. Chester LLC, a unit of Potomac Electric Power Co., a fourth contract to install an additional 25 miles of high-voltage underground electric cable for a Chicago area project. When work is completed on the...

Interim management addresses transition issues.(energy industry overview)
January 1, 2000... In our society "mature" connotes aging or growing old. Some consultants tend to view the energy industry as mature and lacking dynamic market potential and, therefore, unable to sustain the same growth as younger industries. interestingly...