The New Jersey State legislature is entertaining a lame duck proposal by the Public Service Enterprise Group (PSEG), the parent company of New Jersey’s largest utility, Public Service Gas & Electric (PSE&G) to subsidize two PSEG nuclear plants and to have it paid for by New Jersey electricity customers – in other words, a customer-funded… Keep reading →
A survey released this month by a top management consulting firm found that 80 percent of the companies polled – including Apple, Google and Tesla – rank innovation among their top three strategic priorities. Unfortunately, the nation’s utility sector seems to be behind the curve when it comes to embracing this idea. Utility companies invested… Keep reading →
Siemens is acquiring gas equipment manufacturer Dresser-Rand for $7.6 billion dollars in a move meant to help the German conglomerate capitalize on the US energy boom. Earlier this year Siemens bought “most” of Rolls-Royce’s civil energy operation for $1.3 billion. The acquisitions are also likely motivated by a desire to remain competitive with rival GE, which… Keep reading →
On the last day of this year’s 37th IAEE International Conference in New York a distinguished panel of experts, among them Ralph Izzo (Chairman and CEO of Public Service Enterprise Group Incorporated (PSEG)), Jigar Shah (Founder of SunEdison) and David Newbery (Director of Energy Policy Research Group (EPRG), University of Cambridge) discussed the profound challenges… Keep reading →
The recent Energy Strong settlement between New Jersey regulators and Public Service Electric & Gas (PSE&G), the state’s largest utility, should help reinforce vulnerable energy infrastructure ahead of future severe storms. Last month, the Board of Public Utilities (BPU) agreed that customers could fund $1.2 billion in PSE&G improvements to New Jersey’s electric grid to… Keep reading →
A post-Hurricane Sandy storm has been brewing in New Jersey since PSE&G filed an infrastructure-hardening project with the Board of Public Utilities last year. The utility is seeking $3.9 billion to fortify power grid infrastructure flooded during the hurricane. The BPU is balking at the price and questioning the extent to which customers will benefit… Keep reading →
East Coast utilities are making big grid investments to prep for a hot and stormy 2013. Fresh on the heels of Hurricane Sandy’s destruction last year, East Coast utilities are girding their grids for future storms, including a 2013 hurricane season that’s shaping up to be a tough one, according to the latest forecasts. That spending… Keep reading →
How many billion of dollars does it take to secure the infrastructure of an energy company against the “known unknowns” of historic storms and other forms of interruption and just as importantly, who should pay?
The Public Service Enterprise Group company of New Jersey (PSEG) had an opportunity to answer that question in real time in the weeks after Hurricane Sandy, a storm that impacted facilities that had never been hit by storms in 50 years of operation and knocked out power to a remarkable 90% of the company’s customers. Since then, the firm knows that “business as usual is not enough,” PSEG CEO Ralph Izzo told the AGRION Energy & Sustainability Summit in a wide-ranging speech opening the second day of the conference in New York City this week. Keep reading →
Some US utilities could have weathered Hurricane Sandy better than they did if they had invested in smart grid improvements such as smart-metering, outage management, and distribution management systems, a senior GE official said.
John McDonald, Director of Technical Strategy and Policy Development for GE Digital Energy, said utilities that have not yet installed the technology would have known about outages more quickly, been able to swiftly identify their locations, and been able to assign repair crews more efficiently if they had the enhancements in place. Keep reading →
Independent retail electricity providers have sprung up in various states across the US where deregulation has occurred and policies have been put in place to spur competition.
Approximately 20 states have enacted such policies, but the trend toward choosing electricity suppliers appears to be growing. Keep reading →
