Electricity prices and utility restructuring: better or worse?

03/11/2015 - by Eric L. Prentis, University of Saint Thomas, Houston

 

Electricity prices in restructured electric utility states have been empirically tested in restructured states, pre- and post-restructuring, relative to U.S. electricity prices. Are electricity consumers better or worse off as a result of electric utility restructuring?

The vertically integrated, government-regulated natural monopoly electric utility model worked well in the U.S. for nearly 100 years; however, some governors and state legislatures wish to reduce their states’ electricity prices and have been advised that electricity prices would fall naturally if free market competitive marketplaces were established.

Consequently, beginning in the late 1990s, some states restructured their vertically integrated, government-regulated natural monopoly electric utilities by instituting free market competition in the electricity generation and retail sales’ sectors while maintaining the middle-two sectors of transmission and distribution as a government-regulated natural monopoly.

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MIT Startup Gets $2.5M to Develop the Nuclear Reactor We've Been Waiting For

Transatomic Power co-founder and CEO Leslie Dewan

(BostInno) - A Cambridge start-up that’s seeking to turn nuclear power into something most everyone will feel good about has taken the next key step in its long-term plan, raising $2.5 million in new funding from investors including Peter Thiel’s Founders Fund.

Transatomic Power, founded by MIT nuclear science graduates, has now raised $4.5 million since last summer.

The start-up has designed a nuclear reactor that would aim to produce electricity using existing nuclear waste, helping rid us of one of the major issues associated with conventional nuclear plants. The Transatomic reactor design would also not be prone to melting down, according to the company.

And of course, the reactor would have the same environmental benefit of being carbon-free as existing nuclear power designs.

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Exelon Unfazed By Juno; NRC To Look Into Pilgrim Shutdown

Nuclear Street News Team

Exelon Corporation said that its seven nuclear reactors in the path of winter storm Juno ran at full capacity throughout the blizzard.
While the storm dumped from 10 to 40 inches of snow across the Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern portions of the country, Exelon's seven plants in New York, New Jersey, Maryland and Pennsylvania operated without a hiccup, producing 10,832 megawatts of electricity per hour, the company said, adding that this was enough power for more than 10 million homes.

While other power sources struggle to maintain production, nuclear power plants are engineered to run uninterrupted for up to two years. “Beyond that, highly skilled plant workers prepare nuclear facilities months in advance for the worst conceivable winter storm,” Exelon said. “When extreme weather hits, procedures are in place to increase equipment monitoring to minimize or eliminate weather-related problems,” Exelon said in a statement.

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US Nuclear Power Plants Posted Record High Efficiency in 2014

Average Capacity Factor of 91.9 Percent Surpasses Prior Record Set in 2007

 

WASHINGTON, DC, Jan. 22, 2015 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- U.S. nuclear energy facilities generated electricity at a record high level of efficiency in 2014, again demonstrating nuclear energy's value to the reliability and stability of the electric grid and to the nation's economy.

One hundred nuclear power plants operating in 31 states posted an estimated average capacity factor of 91.9 percent, based on preliminary 2014 data compiled by the Nuclear Energy Institute. That surpasses the industry's prior record set in 2007 by one-tenth of a percentage point. Capacity factor measures total electricity generated as a percentage of year-round potential generation.

 Actual electricity production from nuclear energy facilities last year was the sixth-highest ever, at an estimated 798.4 billion kilowatt-hours (kwh). The industry's record high electricity generation came in 2010, when the 104 reactors then operating produced 806.9 billion kwh of electricity while posting an industry average capacity factor of 90.9 percent.

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Report: Power plants, gas companies still feeling each other out

By Wayne Barber, Chief Analyst, GenerationHub 

Power generators and the businesses that provide them natural gas are still figuring each other out, and a new white paper concludes that if differences between the two sectors aren’t harmonized problems could arise, according to GenerationHub.

Authored by the Illinois Institute of Technology, the Long-Term Electric and Natural Gas Infrastructure Requirements White Paper offers a series of recommendations aimed at harmonizing electricity and natural gas markets. The report also seeks to raise awareness within the industry and regulatory community about potential challenges.

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Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant unplugs from the grid for good this week

By Mary Serreze - Special to The Republican 

VERNON, VT -- The 620-megawatt Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant will disconnect from the regional power grid this week after four decades of producing electricity, according to the company's decommissioning website.

Vermont Yankee's final day of operation, targeted for Dec. 29, comes sixteen months after parent company Entergy Corp. announced the plant would close by the end of 2014. Entergy cited economic reasons for the shutdown, including high regulatory costs, increased competition from natural gas power plants, and disadvantageous market structures.


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Groups want Northwest's only commercial nuclear power plant shut down due to fuel storage concerns

by The Associated Press

RICHLAND, Wash. — Two Seattle-based groups are calling for the closure of the Northwest's only commercial nuclear power plant.

Heart of America Northwest and Washington Physicians for Social Responsibility on Wednesday said the Columbia Generating Station should be closed because of worries about the storage pool that cools used nuclear fuel.

A new report commissioned by the groups also questioned worker protection at the plant, which is on leased land at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation.

The Tri-City Herald reported the plant employs about 850 people and generates about 4 percent of the electricity in the Northwest through the Bonneville Power Administration.

The report was written by Robert Alvarez, a frequent critic of nuclear power and a senior scholar at the Institute for Policy Studies.

The report is "64 pages of details about a plant that the author knows very little about," said Mike Paoli, spokesman for Energy Northwest, which operates the plant.

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Texas, the U.S. wind energy leader now looks to battery storage

By Robert Magyar for DigitalJournal.com

 

Dallas - Texas, home of the oil and gas industry, is the U.S. leader in installed wind energy. As its energy mix for electricity continues to change, it has begun to deal with the issue of battery storage similar to California and New York. 

 

Texas, the long time hometown to the nation's oil and gas industry, now has the most installed wind energy generation in the country and continues to add more wind generating capacity each year going forward. According to the American Wind Energy Association in its latest 2014 quarterly production data, Texas has installed more than 12,752 megawatts (MW) of wind energy and currently has more than 40 new wind projects in various stages of development. Its total wind energy output is on par with many U.S. nuclear plants and it has double the amount of wind production as California and more than four times the amount of wind energy generated in neighboring Oklahoma, it close cousin in the oil and gas industry. 

 

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Rising cost of electricity fuels debate over need for Tennessee Gas Pipeline

By RICHIE DAVIS - Recorder Staff

When National Grid announced recently that it will increase electricity prices this winter, that was enough to raise some eyebrows.

 

Not only will its Massachusetts Electric customers have their bills jump by more than one-third beginning next month because of rising fuel costs to generate that power, but competing Western Massachusetts Electric Co. said it will likely also be raising its prices for the six months beginning in January.

This comes as the Tennessee Gas Pipeline Co. moves forward with controversial plans for its Northeast Energy Direct natural gas pipeline, which the company says is needed for New England to power its electric grid and lower energy costs to compete with other regions.

“Limited natural gas transportation infrastructure ... has led to extremely high electricity prices in the Northeast U.S., and threatens the reliability of the region’s electric grid,” Tennessee Gas reported last month in its request to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission for the pipeline across Massachusetts. “As a result of the fact that current natural gas transportation infrastructure is inadequate to meet the growing demand in the New England region, gas prices in New England are the highest in the United States.”

It quoted an industry association study as predicting that 6 billion cubic feet a day of new natural gas pipeline capacity will be needed in the Northeast by 2020, and 10.1 billion cubic feet per day of capacity will be needed by 2035.

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Expansion Gives Colorado Highlands Wind Project A 24 MW Boost

The Tri-State Generation and Transmission Association recently announced that a 24 MW expansion of the Colorado Highlands Wind project is complete.

The wind farm originally came online in December 2012, with 42 1.6-MW GE turbines able to produce 67 MW of power. The expansion - which was announced in April and began construction in July - consists of an additional 14 1.7-MW GE turbines,  increasing the facility's total current capacity to 91 MW.

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UK agrees deal with EU on new Hinkley Point nuclear power plant

By Alex Barker in Brussels - Financial Times

Britain has agreed terms with Brussels to secure approval for billions of pounds of public funding for Hinkley Point, the country’s first new nuclear power plant in a generation. 

While the conditions are not yet public, Europe’s competition chief is satisfied the revised deal meets EU rules on state support and will propose the project is approved before the end of this European Commission’s mandate in November.

The breakthrough is a big boost for the UK government’s contract with French utility EDF, which will provide a template for the next wave of state-backed nuclear plants across Europe. 

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