Exelon

Who is Your Utility’s Chief Risk Officer?

By Greentech Media


When Exelon merged with Constellation, Joe Glace started reporting directly to the president and CEO, Christopher Crane. As the Chief Risk Officer for the mega-utility, it was imperative that he was part of company’s executive committee.

“The new Exelon will have a significantly increased scope across the energy value chain,” Crane said at the time of the announcement in December 2011. “It is vital to our future success that we diligently manage risk from an independent and enterprise-wide perspective.” Keep reading →

Published April 2, 2013 at 9:00 AM

Power Market Transparency: Money Out of ‘Negawatts’

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Americans are accustomed to being told that they are running behind other countries, that other places are doing a better job of educating their young or building high-speed railroads or ensuring access to healthcare. Energy efficiency would seem to be the last area in which the US, with its famously well-lit and climate-controlled lifestyle, would be leading.

But in fact, demand response markets that allow customers and power providers to reap the benefits of “negawatts” (essentially un-used power they would traditionally demand or need to supply) are highly developed in the US, if admittedly still imperfectly understood and applied. The market for demand response, which is the activity that creates “negawatts,” has grown from essentially nothing a decade ago to a $3 billion market today, Joule Assets CEO Mike Gordon told Breaking Energy on the sidelines of the AGRION Energy & Sustainability Summit in New York City this month. Keep reading →

Published February 26, 2013 at 8:00 AM

Guns and the Energy Sector: Risk Awareness Grows

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Six months ago two Louisiana sheriffs were shot to death and two more injured in the parking lot of a Valero oil refinery. Six years ago Saudi police halted a pair of armed terrorist attacks on the world’s largest refinery, in one case opening fire on a car that exploded near the facility’s gates.

Guns are more than a theoretical issue for the energy business, which controls much of the world’s most vital – and most vulnerable infrastructure. As the US contends with a public debate given new urgency by a series of high-profile shootings, the issue of security and gun control in and around key energy infrastructure is once again front of mind for many of the bodies charged with monitoring energy security and devising responses to potential threats. Keep reading →

Published January 16, 2013 at 9:00 AM

The Nation’s Nuclear Plants Are Nuked

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While the nation has been focused on new sources of natural gas and shale oil, few noticed the slow decline of an older energy source, nuclear power. Today, commercial nuclear power is struggling to stay in the game.

The power markets are hammering the nation’s nukes. Over a decade ago, several regions decided to create Regional Transmission Organizations (or Independent System Operators) and use the market to set power prices. Today, North America has ten independent RTOs/ISOs, where wholesale power is auctioned every few minutes. Keep reading →

Published December 18, 2012 at 2:30 PM

Solar Power: The Killer App

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Solar power reduces electricity prices. As more solar is added to deregulated power grids, power prices fall lower. The secret sauce is the markets.

Deregulated power markets are invisible to many Americans, yet every few minutes they set the price for much of their electric power. There are ten separate power markets currently operating in the North America. According to the ISO/RTO Council, they serve approximately two-thirds of electricity consumers in the United States and more than half of all consumers in Canada. Keep reading →

Published November 15, 2012 at 9:00 AM

US Power Prices Will Continue to Increase

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Power prices are too low. That’s what utility executives believe. They need prices to increase for their generators to return healthy earnings. Otherwise, they will have to retire plants and exit the market.

Dominion Resources decided not to wait. They recently announced plans to retire their Wisconsin-based Kewaunee Nuclear Power Station 21 years early. Dominion concluded they would not be able to achieve any earnings for their 556-megawatt unit, they might even lose money and they could not find anyone to buy it. They had no choice but to shutter and decommission Kewaunee. Keep reading →

Published November 6, 2012 at 8:30 AM

More Gas-fired Power May Hike Winter Blackout Risk

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A deep Arctic freeze socks in the Northeast, and every home’s furnace is working overtime. The surge of natural gas use for furnaces means power plants can’t get enough fuel. Power fails, and furnaces can’t start. Gas pipeline compressors lose power, and natural gas flow stops.

What then? Keep reading →

Published September 5, 2012 at 8:30 AM

An Unlikely Energy Leader: Maryland Makes A Splash

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Downtown Baltimore’s Inner Harbor.

When Americans think about the states that lead in energy, they conjure up Texas, California, perhaps Alaska or West Virginia and – with fracking – now Pennsylvania and Ohio. Maryland isn’t an obvious choice. Keep reading →

Published August 22, 2012 at 12:05 PM

Wind at Their Backs: Utility Sector Mulls Further Dealmaking

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The power industry has conducted a complex dance of consolidation and division over the past few decades in response to technological disruption, regulatory trends and financial shifts.

Recent years have brought about a new wave of consolidation and utility bankers have been busy ushering companies into new larger footprints through buying complementary assets rather than embarking on broad new competition-based construction and infrastructure investment programs. Constellation is now part of Exelon, and Duke Energy is adding further to its portfolio with the acquisition of Progress Energy, the two highest-profile deals in a spate of transactions all the more surprising for the tightness in financial markets since the 2008 crisis. Keep reading →

Published June 18, 2012 at 11:30 AM

Government at the Pace of Business: Evaluating US Election Year Energy Policy

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Energy policy in the US has been a prominent issue leading up to the elections this fall and the topic could gain momentum along the way. Commodity price manipulation, fracking, the Keystone pipeline and environmental regulations were just a few of the topics discussed at a breakfast panel held by the American Petroleum Institute in Washington DC this morning.

Recent upward trending US oil and natural gas production is great news for the nation, but the political system is driven by negatives, said former Senator and Congressman of North Dakota, Byron Dorgan. Keep reading →

Published May 15, 2012 at 1:15 PM
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