Electric Light & Power articles from June 2000

Electric Light & Power archives from June 2000

Venture capitalists target competitive energy industry.
June 1, 2000... Fast-growing, fast-changing, unregulated markets--these words are music to the ears of venture capitalists. And recently, they have been tuning in to a business sector previously ignored--the energy industry. Venture capital investment,...

Florida rejects combined-cycle merchants.
June 1, 2000... Strange as it sounds, Florida won't allow most combined cycle merchant power plants to be built in the state. At the same time, however, simple-cycle units and plants sponsored by Florida utilities will proceed unhindered. This bizarre...

PUT TO THE TEST.
June 1, 2000... NASA's Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, Calif., recently tested a research wind turbine in the world's largest wind tunnel to learn how to design and operate turbines more efficiency. The wind turbine is mainly constructed from steel...

Parting shots.
June 1, 2000... When one leaves a job, there's a natural urge to stride into the boss's office on the last day and say, "Boss, let me tell you what I really think of you!" This is followed by a litany of insults and criticisms the likes of which haven't been...

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR.
June 1, 2000... I enjoyed reading your excellent Industry Report on Leaders for the New Millennium in the April 2000 edition. I am leading our small utility through the transformation from a not for profit organization to a for profit incorporated company as...

FirstEnergy demonstrates ECO technology.
June 1, 2000... FirstEnergy will begin a commercial demonstration of air emission reduction technology designed to cut emission of nitrogen oxide ([NO.sub.x]), sulfur dioxide ([SO.sub.2]), fine particulate matter, mercury and other substances at the company's...

ComEd pledges to pay for interrupted service.
June 1, 2000... Commonwealth Edison (ComEd) announced a voluntary pilot program that will automatically pay its customers if it fails to live up to its commitment to reduce electric service interruptions, provide faster service restoration when outages do...

People & companies.
June 1, 2000... Suppliers Tradeout.com appointed Mick Barron to head its new utility sales group. Barron joined Tradeout.com in May 1999 following the sale of his company, World Energy, which built the first U.S. post-war power plant in Vietnam. Prior to...

PG&E.
June 1, 2000... PG&E to begin construction on massive power plant: PG&E broke ground in mid-May on its new 1,048 MW La Paloma facility. Expected to be operational by the summer of 2001, the plant will be the largest competitive wholesale generator in...

Six Pacific NW power cos. in talks to create network.
June 1, 2000... Puget Sound Energy, Avista Corp., Montana Power Co., Portland General Electric, and two companies under Sierra Pacific Resources are negotiating to establish a joint power transmission network to share assets. The new company, which would be...

Pinnacle West Energy to grow.
June 1, 2000... PWE will acquire 1,300 MW in Ariz. and N.M. from Southern California Edison. The $550 million deal will increase Pinnacle's MW by nearly 4,000 once projects are completed. The acquisition is slated to be completed in 2001, pending the...

AEP Pro Serv Inc. wins contract.
June 1, 2000... The nonregulated professional services subsidiary of American Electric Power, AEP Pro Serv, has been selected by Columbia Electric Corp. to build a 500 MW gas-fired power plant near Ceredo, W.Va. AEP will design and construct the six-unit...

Commonwealth Energy Corp. opens store.
June 1, 2000... Santa Monica is now the site of what Commonwealth is billing as "the world's first retail energy store." The energy store provides consumers with innovative energy-efficiency products and serves as a venue where they can learn about renewable...

Peabody to sell Citizens Power.(Brief Article)
June 1, 2000... Peabody Group intends to sell subsidiary, Citizens Power, to Edison Mission Energy, adding to Edison's approximate 23,000 MW capacity. The sale is expected to be completed late this summer.

GRI and IGT combine.(Brief Article)
June 1, 2000... GRI (formerly Gas Research Institute) and the Institute of Gas Technology have joined. The existing Des Plaines, Ill., IGT facility is the planned headquarters of the as-yet-unnamed new company.

PPL Corp. ups investment in Conemaugh Power Plant.(Brief Article)(Statistical Data Included)
June 1, 2000... PEPCO will sell its 9.72 percent share of Conemaugh to PPL Global and Allegheny Energy Supply Co. for $152.5 million. The two companies will split the output from the new share straight down the middle. (PPL already has an 11.39 percent...

PECO and Unicorn merger approved.(Brief Article)
June 1, 2000... FERC unanimously agreed, without conditions, to a merger between PECO Energy Co. and Unicorn Corp. The U.S. Department of Justice has already given anti-trust clearance, but other regulatory agencies have yet to sign off on the deal. PECO and...

Kentucky PSC approves merger.(Brief Article)(Statistical Data Included)
June 1, 2000... The Kentucky Public Service Commission gave the go-ahead to the planned merger of LG&E Energy Corp. and PowerGen of the UK. The merger has yet to be approved by the Virginia State Corporation Commission, where LG&E works under the moniker of...

Ameren transfers power plants.(Brief Article)(Statistical Data Included)
June 1, 2000... Ameren-CIPS facilities moved under the umbrella of a new, nonregulated company, AmerenEnergy Generating Co., a subsidiary of Ameren Corp. The current net book value of the transferred assets is approximately $600 million, but the value of the...

Citizen Utilities changes name.(Brief Article)
June 1, 2000... Shareholders approved a name change for Citizens Utilities. Although it will still be listed as "CZN" on the NYSE, Citizen Utilities has become Citizens Communications.

Utilities take on challenges of improved reliability and PQ.
June 1, 2000... For many utilities, deregulation has resulted in reduced manpower, less experienced manpower, lower maintenance budgets, lower capital budgets and less conservative loading practices. All of these changes will most likely negatively impact...

Avista Utilities buoys start-up affiliates as Avista Corp. repositions.
June 1, 2000... Avista Utilities is the "old-timer" among the Avista Corp. subsidiaries, having been in the business for 111 years. In comparison, its sister businesses are recent newcomers, and Avista Corp.'s transformation from a traditional utility company...

Revenue management technology in energy: It's not just for airlines anymore.
June 1, 2000... In truth, this is the science airline passengers love to hate. Passengers hate to have to comprehend the complexities of 50,000 fares; airlines love to watch as their revenues skyrocket with optimally priced seats on filled-to-the-brim flights....

Avista Communications and Lucent partner.(Lucent Technologies)(Brief Article)
June 1, 2000... Avista Communications and Lucent Technologies announced a four-year strategic agreement under which Avista Communications will enhance and expand its network with the purchase of 5ESS(R) switches in a contract valued at $25 million. The 5ESS...

SAIC & ScottishPower form joint venture.(Science Applications International Corp. subsidy SAIC Ltd.)(Brief Article)
June 1, 2000... Science Applications International Corp., through its United Kingdom subsidiary SAIC Ltd., and ScottishPower's Information Systems Division announced the formation of a joint venture, CALANAIS, to exploit the growing demand for IT expertise in...

C3 Communications adds Internet access service.(Brief Article)
June 1, 2000... The Networks Division of C3 Communications, a subsidiary of Central and South West Corp., announced the addition of wholesale Internet access service to their product line. C3's Internet access service provides fault-tolerant, upstream Internet...

GIS: It's not what you have, it's how you use it.(Brief Article)
June 1, 2000... Many management articles have chronicled the benefits of high leverage using the 80/20 rule articulated in the 18th century by Italian economist Vilfredo Pareto. Moving to more recent times, David and Tom Gardner with their Motley Fool approach...

Utilities, Internet: The importance of being well-connected.
June 1, 2000... Today's world economy is undergoing fundamental changes. Exhilarating to some, challenging to many, these changes are forever altering the ways every enterprise acquires wealth and creates shareholder value. The Internet, with its capabilities...

UtilityGuide.com launches upgraded shopping engine.(Brief Article)
June 1, 2000... Berkeley, Calif.-based UtilityGuide.com announced that it has launched an upgraded version of its Web site that makes it easier for consumers to shop for electricity services online. Visitors can use "E-Shopper" to compare service plans in...

CheckFree announces close of BlueGill acquisition.(CheckFree Holdings Corp. closes Bluegill Technologies Inc. acquisition)(Brief Article)
June 1, 2000... In April, CheckFree Holdings Corporation announced that its acquisition of Bluegill Technologies, Inc. has been consummated with the issuance of 5,000,000 shares of CheckFree stock to Bluegill's shareholders. CheckFree Corp. (www.checkfree.com)...

Derivion e-powers 98,000 Georgia electric customers.(Brief Article)
June 1, 2000... Sawnee EMC, an electric membership cooperative in north Georgia, and Derivion recently announced that Sawnee would provide Internet presentment and payment services with Derivion's e-billing solution, inetBillerSM. Atlanta-based Derivion's...

Bank of America and CheckFree rev up Internet payments.(Brief Article)
June 1, 2000... Bank of America (NYSE: BAC) and CheckFree Holdings Corp. (NASDAQ: CKFR) forged an alliance that will make e-billing and payment services available to the one out of every three banking households in America that make up Bank of America's...

Carrier & Silicon Energy "comfort" users, environment.(Brief Article)
June 1, 2000... Carrier, Silicon Energy, emWare and AT&T have teamed up to deliver a solution for utilities to better manage energy demand while enabling residential customers to retain comfort control. Through a new program called ComfortChoice, the companies...

Teaming up "Down Under" for e-billing: Andersen and edocs.(Andersen Consulting, edocs Inc.)(Brief Article)
June 1, 2000... Andersen Consulting and edocs Inc., a provider of Internet billing and customer management software and services, have agreed to provide e-billing solutions, to clients to help them meet consumer demand for the service and cut costs. Under the...

Utility.com tops in national supplier licenses.(Brief Article)
June 1, 2000... Albany, Calif.-based Utility.com, an Internet utility company, recently added the state of Arizona to its growing list of deregulated electricity markets. With the okay from the Arizona Corporation Commission's and a Certificate of Convenience...

Webbing together.(Strategic Resource Solutions Corp.)(Brief Article)
June 1, 2000... Cary, N.C.-based energy and facilities management solutions provider SRS (Strategic Resource Solutions Corp.), a subsidiary of Carolina Power & Light, will incorporate Silicon Energy Corp.'s Enterprise Energy Management (EEM) technology into...

Solar power: Updating the market perspective for a "disruptive technology".
June 1, 2000... Precious few--if any--of us will be active in the electric utility industry in 2050, when solar power may be viable in central-station generation applications. That's a long time to wait. In the meantime, don't give up on the technology....

ASC to build world's first commercial HTS wire plant.(American Supercontor Corp., high temperature superconductor wire)(Brief Article)
June 1, 2000... American Superconductor corp. will construct a green-field plant to manufacture high temperature superconductor (HTS) wire. The plant, located in Devens, Mass., is expected to produce 10,000 kilometers of HTS wire in its first year. The plant...

GE and Kubota to launch fuel cells in Japan.(GE HomeGen 7000)(Brief Article)
June 1, 2000... Kubota Corp. of Japan has agreed to be an international distributor of GE MicroGen Inc. (GEMG) fuel cells. The GEMG fuel cell system, manufactured by Plug Power, converts commonly available fuels, such as natural gas or LPG, to electricity...

DTE Energy Technologies signs MOU to develop miniturbine.(Whitney Canada Corp. and Turbo Genset Co., memorandum of understanding)(Brief Article)
June 1, 2000... DTE Energy Technologies has signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with Pratt & Whitney Canada Corp. and Turbo Genset Co. Ltd. for funding the development of a 333 kW electric generator. This allows the companies, through a joint venture,...

New threats, rivals stampede into online energy.
June 1, 2000... No longer is it the traditional energy industry competitor who will use technology to gun for your piece of the e-commerce pie. The new threat on the e-energy horizon comes from dot.com companies who are fast-footing their way into every market...

MANAGEMENT METHODS.(Brief Article)
June 1, 2000... WHEN COMPETITION IN THE WORKPLACE DOESN'T WORK Sometimes it's possible to bring out the best in your people by creating a competitive atmosphere. But not always. Sometimes people simply refuse to compete. This is especially true when a...