Electric Light & Power articles from March 2000

Electric Light & Power archives from March 2000

ISO and generators joust in New England, "fair" market prices spur attacks.(Industry Overview)
March 1, 2000... Battle cries of price gouging, price suppression and threatened reliability resounded across the six-state region of New England's restructured wholesale electricity marketplace as the Independent System Operator New England (ISO-NE) and...

Utility stocks glimmer as high-tech offerings entice investors.(Industry Overview)
March 1, 2000... Like the old television sitcom, "The Jeffersons," energy companies are "moving on up" in the opinion of many top stock analysts. Growing beyond the historic stodgy investment, deregulation and new technology are pushing good returns with...

E-business beyond the buzzword.
March 1, 2000... The current trend toward adding an "e-" before everything is one of my biggest pet peeves. It's almost, but not quite, as annoying as dinnertime sales calls,... or anything else that interrupts dinner. But I digress. Companies are so...

NiSource agrees to acquire Columbia Energy.(Brief Article)
March 1, 2000... NiSource Inc. and Columbia Energy Group announced a definitive merger agreement under which NiSource will acquire all outstanding common shares of Columbia for a total consideration of about $6.0 billion. NiSource will also assume about $2.5...

Dominion Resources tops Entergy's offer for NYPA's nuclear plants.(Brief Article)
March 1, 2000... Dominion Resources Inc. announced its offer of $686 million for the New York Power Authority's Indian Point 3 and James A. FitzPatrick nuclear stations, topping by more than 12 percent Entergy's $611 million bid. Dominion also offered $171...

UtiliCorp continues international growth.(Brief Article)
March 1, 2000... UtiliCorp United agreed to acquire TransAlta Corp.'s Alberta, Canada-based electricity distribution and retail assets for $450 million. The deal is subject to regulatory approvals in Canada and the United States and is expected to be accretive...

Conectiv sells fossil plants to NRG Energy.(Brief Article)
March 1, 2000... Conectiv signed an agreement to sell 1,875 MW of fossil-fired generation and related assets to NRG Energy, subsidiary of Northern States Power Co., for $800 million. The sale is consistent with Conectiv's goal of exiting baseload and nuclear...

FirstEnergy wins JCPenney contract.(Brief Article)
March 1, 2000... FirstEnergy Services Corp. signed a $2.1 million contract to supply more than 49 million kWh of electricity to 19 JCPenney stores in New Jersey. This is First Energy's third major department store customer, joining hundreds of Kmart and...

Detroit Edison awards contract to Pennsylvania Transformer.(Brief Article)
March 1, 2000... Detroit Edison awarded a 5-year, $50 million contract to Pennsylvania Transformer Technology Inc., Canonsburg, Penn., to provide new power transformers as the utility upgrades its electric system. Pennsylvania Transformer will provide at least...

Ore. utility to sell stakes in dams.(Brief Article)
March 1, 2000... Portland General Electric agreed to sell stakes in its hydroelectric system over four decades to American Indian tribes that now lease the dam properties to the utility. It plans to sell a third of the 408 MW Pelton Round Butte system to the...

GE Power Systems inks $4 billion deal with Duke Energy.(Brief Article)
March 1, 2000... GE Power Systems secured agreements totaling nearly $4 billion to supply power generation equipment and services to Duke Energy North America. The agreements cover the purchase of 84 gas turbines, 17 steam turbines and long-term service...

Calpine to build in Miss.(Brief Article)
March 1, 2000... Calpine Corp. plans to build, own and operate an 800 MW natural gas-fired facility, the Lone Oak Energy Center, in Lowndes County, Miss. Representing a $425 million investment, the center is expected to enter commercial operation in early 2003....

Calif. licenses Delta Energy Center.(in Pittsburg, Calif.)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2000... The California Energy Commission approved plans by Calpine Corp. and Bechtel Enterprises to construct the 880 MW, natural gas-fired Delta Energy Center in Pittsburg, Calif. Construction is slated to begin in June 2000.

NRC approves transfer of MidAmerican Energy nuclear assets.(Brief Article)
March 1, 2000... The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission approved the indirect transfer of MidAmerican Energy Co.'s 25 percent non-operating ownership interest in Quad Cities Nuclear Power Station, Units 1 and 2, as a result of the acquisition of MidAmerican...

People and Companies.
March 1, 2000... Utilities & Associations American Electric Power's board of directors elected Susan Tomasky executive vice president. She is currently AEP's general counsel and senior vice president-legal. Prior to joining AEP in 1998, she was a partner...

Reliant Energy captures Mid-Atlantic generation.
March 1, 2000... Reliant Energy Inc., an international energy services and energy delivery company, reached a definitive purchase agreement to acquire for $2.1 billion in cash 21 power plants located in the Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Maryland (PJM) power pool...

Asbestos liability pushes Babcock & Wilcox to bankruptcy.
March 1, 2000... The Babcock & Wilcox Co. (B&W), a wholly owned subsidiary of McDermott International Inc., announced that B&W and certain of its subsidiaries filed a voluntary petition in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana in New...

Distributed generation advances against industry barriers.(electric power generation)
March 1, 2000... Major market forces are driving significant change in the distributed generation industry. First, there's good old economics. As technologies mature, they become more efficient and less expensive, so that distributed generation (DG) becomes a...

NSTAR forges new model as wires and pipes utility.(formed from the merger of Boston Edison and Commonwealth Energy Systems)
March 1, 2000... EL&P's Utility of the Month for March 2000 is NSTAR, formed from the merger of Boston Edison and Commonwealth Energy Systems. Boston Edison was one of the first U.S. utilities to re-tool itself completely. The company sold all its...

Retail energy devil in the details.
March 1, 2000... You have no doubt heard and read a lot about change in the energy industry. So what else is new? We are redefining the rules, cutting and pasting organizations together, and inventing new technologies every day, but who isn't? What makes the...

Implementing competition through retail-tailored billing systems.(Nicor Energy LLC;)
March 1, 2000... Is your company still attempting to stitch together bits and scraps of piecemeal pre-deregulation systems in a last-ditch effort to meet the gargantuan data needs of the competitive environment? As surely as ill-woven sutures on a fast-moving...

AMR facilitates transition to competitive energy.(automatic meter reading)
March 1, 2000... Although automatic meter reading (AMR) was invented about 100 years ago, AMR products have only been commercially available within the last 25 years, driven primarily by the utilities' need by to reliably read their customers' meters. Several...

Kissimmee premiers online bill paying.
March 1, 2000... While doing business for 99 years, the Kissimmee Utility Authority (KUA) cannot be accused of being set in its ways. Early this year, for example, the central Florida electric company unveiled the QuickPay Program, which gives customers the...

Faster data transmission demands SCADA review.(Industry Overview)(Technical)
March 1, 2000... Data communications networks are evolving into a new environment for SCADA (supervisory control and data acquisition) systems, an environment that can present significant challenges to SCADA systems designers. Frame relay, Ethernet and IP...

Utility investors should cheer.(Brief Article)
March 1, 2000... The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission's (FERC) Order 2000 facilitates the creation of regional transmission organizations (RTOs) by proposing a policy path that is voluntary, collaborative and all-inclusive. While most electricity customers...

New voice/data technology for EES' POS/OE 4.(Product Announcement)
March 1, 2000... E.E.S. Companies, Inc., (www.eesco.com) has recently released EES' POS/OE 4 with MCK Communications' IP EXTender 4000 and Branch Office EXTender 6000 which allows customers to set up remote offices via the Internet. With a high speed cable...

Migrating to cellular.(Brief Article)
March 1, 2000... People's Energy (www.pecorp.com), the major seller and distributor of natural gas in the Chicago area, has elected to discontinue using 800 MHz two-way radios in favor of Nextel (www.nextel.com) digital wireless cellular service. Under a...

Enron to provide Internet broadcasting services.(Brief Article)
March 1, 2000... Enron has agreed to provide Internet broadcasting services to online financial service companies Road-Show.com and Q4i.com. The terms were not disclosed. Road-Show.com broadcasts company presentations on the Internet. Q4i.com provides financial...

E-utilities increasing efficiencies, services and economies via the Web.(Industry Overview)
March 1, 2000... Tired of forgetful customers who fail to remember to sign or enclose their checks in their payment envelope? Exasperated with end-users that insist on scrawling illegible service questions on their energy bills? It's true that even the most...

Home access technology options expand for AMR, consumer services.(Industry Overview)
March 1, 2000... Facing a new and deregulated marketplace, utilities are placing bets on what strategies will be most effective in maintaining and enhancing market share and customer loyalty. How will utilities differentiate themselves from others in the...

Excelergy launches first retail Internet transaction hub.(Brief Article)
March 1, 2000... Reducing the cost and complexity of business-to-business transactions, Excelergy Corp. launched eXACThub, the first Internet hub for the deregulated energy industry that enables secure communications, access to information and transactions...

Going global with eCRM.(Brief Article)
March 1, 2000... Recognition Systems Group, plc, the Birmingham, England-based developer and vendor of electronic customer relationship management (eCRM) software and systems recently received several orders for Protagona, the company's eCRM software, from new...

Derivion gets $40 million in funding.
March 1, 2000... Derivion, an application service provider of electronic bill presentment and payment (EBPP) services, recently plumped its pockets with some $40 million from a syndicate of private equity sources. Investors included the Capital Z Financial...

Montana now serving up billserv.com's e-billing.(Montana Power Co.)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2000... More than 325,000 Montana Power Co. customers are now scheduled to receive electronic bill presentment and payment services through billserv.com Inc. Under a new three-year agreement, the power company's 285,400 electric customers and 148,000...

Did you say "Microsoft"?(SCT's Synchronization Solutions software)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2000... Malvem, PA-based SCT recently announced a new Web-enabled, customer management system-SCT Synchronization Solutions for Utilities (Synchro). Built for the Microsoft SQL 7.0 platform, Synchro allows utilities companies already using the...

Tools of the trade: Engineering software streamlines design process.(Syntha Corp's Syntha 2000 and its predecessor, Syntha II)
March 1, 2000... Engineering software ranges from simple to complex, allowing manipulation of many design or process variables while integrating various industry standards and equipment manufacturers' specifications. Software providers strive to develop new...

SOFC achieves milestone.(Siemens Westinghouse Power Corp.'s solid oxide fuel cell)
March 1, 2000... Siemens Westinghouse Power Corp.'s 100 kW solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC) power system, the world's largest, completed one year of total operating time--the longest any fuel cell of this type and size has run. The milestone marked the halfway...

Teaming up for T&D testing, maintenance.(ABB Power T&D Company Inc.; PP&L Inc.)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2000... ABB Power T&D Company Inc. has entered into a transmission and distribution (T&D) services alliance with PP&L Inc., which provides electric delivery services to 1.3 million customers in Pennsylvania. ABB will use PP&L's state-of-the-art,...

Partners fly high for mapping.(GeoDigital Technologies Inc.)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2000... GeoDigital Technologies Inc. (GTI), Santa Maria, Calif., a digital mapping and inspection company, has formed alliances with Heli-Max Ltd., a helicopter operator and power line maintenance and installation company, and Global Atmospherics Inc....

SMES goes international.(American Superconductor annouces an order for superconducting magnetic energy storage units)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2000... American Superconductor announced an order for two of its superconducting magnetic energy storage (SMES) units from Edison, the largest private utility in Italy and a new distributor for the SMES product line. American Superconductor expects to...

Catalytica earns ISO 9001 registration.(Catalytica Combustion Systems Inc.)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2000... Catalytica Combustion Systems Inc., a subsidiary of Catalytica Inc., earned ISO 9001 registration from Underwriters Laboratories Inc. for the production of Xonon, a product used for [NO.sub.x] control in gas turbines. The ISO series standards...

SatCon to build fuel cell power converters.(SatCon Technology Corp.)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2000... SatCon Technology Corp., Cambridge, Mass., will build fuel cell power converters for H Power Corp., Belleville, N.J. The converters convert dc electrical output from H Power's proton exchange membrane fuel cell systems into ac electrical power....

B&W partners with Pegasus.(Brief Article)
March 1, 2000... The Babcock & Wilcox Co. (B&W) and Pegasus Technologies have formed a strategic alliance to improve utilities' emissions performance and reduce operating costs. B&W integrates a variety of products, technologies and [NO.sub.x] control systems...

HTS cable goes live in practical application.(Brief Article)
March 1, 2000... Southwire Co. installed three 100-foot high-temperature superconducting (HTS) cables to power three manufacturing plants at its headquarters in Carrollton, Ga. Having nearly zero resistance, HTS power cables lose only about a half-percent of...

Distributed generation speeds demand for fuel cells.(Product Announcement)
March 1, 2000... Field trials beginning this year will lead to commercial introduction in 2001 of a new kind of stationary power plant designed to provide clean, quiet, high quality, reliable, uninterrupted, efficiently generated power. The plant uses the...

IEEE sets standard for DG grid connections.(Brief Article)
March 1, 2000... An Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE)-sponsored working group has developed the first interconnection standard of its kind for allowing utility interconnections of non-utility-owned distributed generation (DG) equipment....

Pilipovic's new real options theory: Why utilities should now value physical assets as financial options.(Industry Overview)
March 1, 2000... When you think of pioneering energy risk analysts, a finite set of names spring to mind. In the realm of energy derivative markets and electricity, one of the foremost names in the industry continues to be Dragana Pilipovic, the founder and...

FPL switches off Northeast power marketing efforts.(Brief Article)
March 1, 2000... FPL Group Inc. (FPL) recently found another supplier for its unregulated power and natural gas customers in Pennsylvania and New Jersey, completing the company's withdrawal from unregulated retail marketing, a FPL spokesman said. The changes...

Mexico kills open electricity vote for 2000.(Brief Article)(Industry Overview)
March 1, 2000... Plans for opening Mexico's electricity industry are all but dead for this congressional voting year. Reuters reported that the Mexican Congress would not consider a constitutional amendment allowing private ventures in electricity generation,...

Three powerhouses form European energy brokerage.(Brief Article)
March 1, 2000... Natsource LLC, an institutional energy broker, announced that it has reached an agreement to acquire Sandefjord, Norway-based CBF Energy Brokers Ltd. in combination with Natsource's partner, London-based Tullett & Tokyo Plc, the venture creates...

Ouch! Losing $13 billion can hurt.(Brief Article)(Industry Overview)
March 1, 2000... A new study said hundreds of energy service companies are inefficiently and ineffectively selling their services to the health care market, which is spending an estimated $13 billion on energy and related services. The Cambridge, Mass.-based...

Give your people a feeling of participation.
March 1, 2000... Employees want many things: challenging work, recognition of their contributions to the business, benefits that protect them against the uncertainties of life, safe working conditions, and managers who provide leadership. But beyond this,...