Impending Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) regulations governing utilities’ cooling water intake and discharge could force some power plants to close, according to Black & Veatch Energy Chief Executive Dean Oskvig. Electricity production accounts for 38% of US water usage. In many cases, cooling water is drawn directly from a source such as a river or… Keep reading →
Mergers and acquisitions in the utilities sector picked up in the first quarter as companies have begun to jettison merchant plants, according to PricewaterhouseCoopers US power and utilities deals leader Jeremy Fago. PwC reported that first-quarter deal value in the utilities sector rose by 33% over the same period a year ago. This was driven… Keep reading →
Moody’s analysts are have weighed in on prospects for liquefied natural gas (LNG) exports from the US, forecasting that chemical companies and utilities could see some negative impact from higher domestic natural gas prices, but not enough to bring down their credit ratings.
Moody’s expects US LNG export capacity to rise to 6.3 billion cubic feet per day by 2020 – equivalent to 178.4 million cubic meters per day, compared with global exports totaling 330.8 billion cubic meters per day in 2011, according to BP’s Statistical Review of World Energy. “We do not expect the volume of exports from North America will have a significant impact on the global LNG trade during this decade,” the rating agency said in a report, The Prospect of US LNG Exports Influences Pricing and Gas Markets Worldwide. Keep reading →
Big deals with big investor-owned utilities (IOUs) get most of the attention from press and analysts. But in the last 18 months, most of the major vendors have created special packages aimed at the “small power market” – small to mid-size IOUs, municipals and coops. SAIC has its smart grid as a service. General Electric offers hosted GridIQ applications. Silver Spring Networks has a robust platform with several dozen partners. Meanwhile, companies such as Aclara and Tantalus have been targeting “small power” for years.
Many recent offerings are cloud-based services, where the vendor owns and operates all of the software. But Sensus has taken a slightly different tack in its just-released bundle aimed at the small power market. Sensus has pre-integrated its metering and distribution automation solutions with software from Harris Utilities. Company spokespeople claim the result is a “completely integrated suite… for meter data management, asset management and consumer engagement” that substantially reduces integration and deployment time. Keep reading →
