Electric Light & Power articles from May 2001

Electric Light & Power archives from May 2001

PG&E to Gov. Davis: We're busted.
May 1, 2001... Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E) now has the dubious distinction of being only the third electric utility in American history to declare bankruptcy, and they're the first official casualty of California's floundering deregulation process. The...

Entergy, FPL Group scrap merger plans.
May 1, 2001... Entergy Corp. and FPL Group have parted ways on the merger set to create America's largest energy distributor. The proposed transaction- which had a value range of $6 to $9 billion, depending on input factors-ground to a halt with April's cusp....

KING ME.(Brief Article)
May 1, 2001... Kissimmee Utility Authority (KUA) and Orlando Utilities Commission recently held a human checkers game in downtown Kissimmee; it featured 24 local dignitaries who were selected as "checkers" twelve from each city. The mayors called their moves...

Transmission may take leading role in the next "energy crisis".
May 1, 2001... Discussions of transmission capture attention. This was evidenced by the standing room only attendance at the T&D sessions held during PennWell's American Power Conference (APC), which took place in Chicago last month. Of course, one could...

Mirant separates from Southern.(Brief Article)
May 1, 2001... Mirant is now a fully independent, publicly traded company, after the completion of a spin-off from its parent, Southern Co. In September of 2000, Southern Company sold 19.7 percent of Miran'ts stock through an initial public offering of the...

Alliant proposes Wisconsin MW.(Brief Article)
May 1, 2001... Alliant Energy unveiled plans to develop up to 800 MW of new electric power generation in Wisconsin over the next 10 years. The company will seek to add 500 MW of coal-fired and 100 MW of natural gas-fired generation by 2006, and an additional...

Sempra breaks Mesquite ground.(Brief Article)
May 1, 2001... Sempra Energy Resources, the power development subsidiary of Sempra Energy, broke ground on the Mesquite Power Generating Station in Arizona. The $500 million, 1,200 MW facility should be completed in 2003. Sempra estimates that the finished...

ALSTOM wins order.(Brief Article)
May 1, 2001... ALSTQM has won an order to supply Reliant Energy Seward LLC, an unregulated unit of Reliant Energy's Wholesale Group, with a 520 MW coal-fired power plant to be built at Seward in Pennsylvania. The total order is valued at approximately $550...

Calpine to construct Texas plant.(Brief Article)
May 1, 2001... Calpine Corp. plans to build, own and operate a 1,000 MW natural gas-fired power facility in Deer Park, Texas. The proposed center will supply steam to Shell Chemical Co.; the power produced will be sold wholesale. Construction is expected to...

Constellation on the verge of construction.(Brief Article)
May 1, 2001... Constellation Energy Group has begun preparation for construction on the 680 MW Oleander Power Plant in Brevard County, Fla The plant is scheduled to begin commercial operation in the summer of 2002. Under the terms of a power purchase...

FERC Order 2000 drives RTO initiatives; ISOs, Transcos prevail.
May 1, 2001... The wholesale electric transmission industry has changed dramatically in the past year and is poised to evolve well into the future. In response to Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) Order 2000, transmission owners from all over the...

Distancing itself from California, Texas declares it's like a whole other country.
May 1, 2001... In a country besieged by California's deregulation fallout--PG&E declares bankruptcy, SDG&E and Dynegy square off with rapid-fire, press-release finger pointing--finding a state looking forward to restructuring is rather like finding the last...

Views from the top: CEOs share insights about ERCOT and merchant plants.
May 1, 2001... EL&P invited several CEOs to share their views of the industry and to offer their ideas about future directions. In this first installment of a two-part series, Tom Noel, CEO of the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) and Clarence...

EMK3 pioneers natural gas trading at the well site.
May 1, 2001... When EMK3 launched an online petroleum marketplace early this year, oil buyers and sellers were given the opportunity to participate in an innovative "at the well" e-trading system. Natural gas traders soon asked where to click on the Web site....

FASB rules out bad data.(Financial Accounting Standards Board)(Brief Article)
May 1, 2001... Data quality is an ongoing issue for energy organizations. Identifying profitable trading opportunities ahead of the competition and being able to act on them is what sets the leaders apart. Every day decisions worth hundreds of thousands...

Technology links front office to customers.(Industry Trend or Event)
May 1, 2001... As the marketplace transforms, energy companies face many new challenges in the front office. Traditionally, energy companies have had separate customer information databases, complicating interaction with customers as new products emerge,...

ALSTOM launches Web portal.(Brief Article)
May 1, 2001... After a year in which it consolidated the power equipment businesses of several companies operating in the U.S., ALSTOM Power has introduced ALSTOM Power Online, a program that uses the Internet to provide comprehensive customer service across...

Dynegyconnect chooses Fujitsu.(for dense wave division multiplexing equipment and services)(Brief Article)
May 1, 2001... Denver-based Dynegyconnect LP will purchase dense wave division multiplexing (DWDM) equipment and services from Fujitsu Network Communications Inc., a subsidiary of Fujitsu Limited, making Fujitsu the primary DWDM supplier for Dynegyconnect....

Consumers Energy selects ArcGIS.(Environmental Systems Research Institute's geographic information system)(Brief Article)
May 1, 2001... Consumers Energy, Jackson, Mich., selected ESRI's ArcGIS for gas operations implementation. From code compliance to system planning, damage prevention, decision analysis, emergency operations, customer service, and marketing, the open,...

Avenir upgrades software.(Brief Article)(Product Announcement)
May 1, 2001... Avenir Systems detailed new developments for its suite of Classic software products for the utilities industry. First, a program will migrate customers from outdated IBM AS/400 platforms to the latest IBM Series server line. A second...

X-Traweb signs with Automated Energy.
May 1, 2001... World Wireless Communications' subsidiary X-traWeb signed a letter of understanding with Automated Energy Inc. to jointly market and sell World Wireless' embedded X-traWeb technology and the Energy Management Information Services software...

Analysts predict steady rise in gas turbine market.
May 1, 2001... Not too long ago, America woke up and realized that it was running out of electric power. With a growth in the population, a multi-fold increase in electrical power-hungry electronics, and a long cycle of hot summers and warm winters, demands...

AEP's NAS battery may be link to electric energy storage.
May 1, 2001... Engineers at American Electric Power's (AEP) research laboratory are testing a new stationary battery capable of storing large amounts of electrical energy for use during peak energy demand and for power quality applications. Such technology...

ABB upgrades Omaha.(ABB Automation, Omaha Public Power District)(Brief Article)
May 1, 2001... Omaha Public Power District awarded ABB Automation a contract for full scope instrumentation and control system installation for four units at the District's North Omaha Power station. The $20 million turnkey project will replace the power...

Global Power files IPO.(Company Financial Information)(Brief Article)
May 1, 2001... Global Power Equipment Group Inc., maker of equipment for gas turbine power plants, filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission for an initial public offering (IPO). The Tulsa, Okla.-based company hopes to raise $125 million and use the...

Inverter achieves efficiency.(Company Business and Marketing)(Brief Article)
May 1, 2001... Sustainable Energy Technologies Ltd. successfully completed initial testing of its next generation power inverter. Results show the 4-kW DC-to-AC inverter has a peak efficiency of 96 percent at 20 percent of full load, exceeding industry...

AEP signs Thermal Energy.(American Electric Power Company Inc., Thermal Energy International Inc.)(Brief Article)
May 1, 2001... American Electric Power Co. Inc. (AEP), a coal-fired plant in Conesville, Ohio, and Thermal Energy International Inc., Ottawa, Ont., signed a $1.56-million contract under which the Canadian company will complete final engineering, design,...

EnSource and Capstone partner.(EnSource Energy Services Inc., Capstone Turbine Corp.)(Brief Article)
May 1, 2001... EnSource Energy Services Inc. entered an agreement with Capstone Turbine Corp. to become a global distributor and service provider of Capstone's line of MicroTurbines and be the authorized service provider for the oil and gas industry in...

Virginia gets GenerLink.(Dominion Virginia Power, Pepco Technologies LLC's electric power interconnection device)(Brief Article)
May 1, 2001... Pepco Technologies LLC, a subsidiary of Potomac Electric Power Company, signed an agreement giving Dominion Virginia Power the ability to offer GenerLink to its residential customers in Virginia. Introduced in 1999, Pepco's patented...

EL&P examines customer focus.(electric utilities' services)(Brief Article)
May 1, 2001... In deregulating markets, customers are rising to top of the list of utility business drivers. In the past, customers have been a captive audience. Now, with the power to choose, customers will expect more from utilities. Utilities must deliver...

What do utilities really know about customers?(electric utilities)(Statistical Data Included)
May 1, 2001... Deregulation patterns keep resurfacing. Shortly after controls are lifted, prices fluctuate wildly while earnings visibility clouds over. Then the price of commodity products and services drops until razor-thin margins are reached. In the...

Personalization bears fruit in satisfied customers.(electric utilities' Web sites)(Brief Article)
May 1, 2001... Regardless of what people say about the advantages of the Internet (instant access and around-the-clock service), the rules for customer service haven't changed. Service is still the primary driver of satisfaction. Vendors watch in horror as...

Companies visualize billing as a slice of customer service.(electric utilities)(Brief Article)
May 1, 2001... Nearly nine out of ten customers call their utilities only when they have a billing problem. Despite billing's central role, some researchers have estimated that the majority of utility bills contain errors. Under regulation, billing...

AIR-FLOW SENSOR.(from Weber Sensors Inc.)(Brief Article)
May 1, 2001... The new vent-captor from weber Sensors Inc. (www.captor.com), measures flow of air or gaseous media, utilizing a calorimetric principle pioneered by weber. The ventcaptor has no moving parts, can measure low flow rates (0-1 meter/second) as...

ETHERNET HUB.(Brief Article)(Product Announcement)
May 1, 2001... The new ethernet hub 4900 series is an 8 port optical hub also with internal power supplies. All hubs are available with 850nm and 1310nm multi-mode and 1350nm single-mode optics. The 4900 series devices can be powered directly by 24 to 48Vdc...

TESTER.(Company Business and Marketing)(Brief Article)
May 1, 2001... The open neutral tester from Sure Proof Testing (www.suretest001.com) has a builtin feature to allow service technicians to apply a load to the service panel with the flip of a switch. It can apply a load to each hot leg by changing the switch...

CONTROL SYSTEMS.(Company Business and Marketing)(Brief Article)
May 1, 2001... The human machine interface (HMI) protection, monitoring, and control systems for distribution substations are now available. The HMI complements protection and control devices by enabling users to monitor and manipulate them from an...

POWER TRANSDUCER.(Phaser programmable power transducer)(Brief Article)
May 1, 2001... The new Phaser programmable power transducer has metering-class accuracy, disturbance and analyzer speed, and measures each phase voltage and current over ten thousand times each second. Digital signal processing simultaneously distills this...

Miso.(Midwest ISO)
May 1, 2001... The Midwest ISO is a progressive organization dedicated to the fair and reliable transmission of electricity in the Midwest. We are looking for people who seek a challenge and have the desire to apply their knowledge to making a positive...

MANAGEMENT METHODS.(effective communications)(Brief Article)
May 1, 2001... DO YOU COMMUNICATE EFFECTIVELY? Putting your ideas across and trying to understand the ideas of others--whether spoken or written--probably make up at least 50 percent of most people's working day. Where communications are effective,...