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Performance-based Regulation
Performance-based regulation (PBR) is an approach to Public utility, utility regulation designed to strengthen utility performance incentives. Thus defined, the term PBR is synonymous with incentive regulation. The two most common forms of PBR are award-penalty mechanisms (“APMs”) and multiyear rate plans (“MRPs”). Both involve mathematical formulas that can lower regulatory cost at the same time that they encourage better performance. This constitutes a remarkable potential advance in the “technology” of regulation. Economic theorists whose work has supported the development of PBR include Nobel prize-winning economist Jean Tirole. Implementation of applicable methods of incentive regulation represents a complex problem for regulatory authorities. Therefore, this problem should be analyzed though different aspects, taking into consideration parameters, such as incentive’s mechanism defined by regulatory authorities, enabling thus the development of regulated activ ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Public Utility
A public utility company (usually just utility) is an organization that maintains the infrastructure for a public service (often also providing a service using that infrastructure). Public utilities are subject to forms of public control and regulation ranging from local community-based groups to statewide government monopolies. Public utilities are meant to supply goods and services that are considered essential; water, gas, electricity, telephone, waste disposal, and other communication systems represent much of the public utility market. The transmission lines used in the transportation of electricity, or natural gas pipelines, have natural monopoly characteristics. A monopoly can occur when it finds the best way to minimize its costs through economies of scale to the point where other companies cannot compete with it. For example, if many companies are already offering electricity, the additional installation of a power plant will only disadvantage the consumer ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Southern California Edison
Southern California Edison (SCE), the largest subsidiary of Edison International, is the primary electric utility company for much of Southern California. It provides 15 million people with electricity across a service territory of approximately 50,000 square miles. SCE owns all of its electrical transmission facilities and equipment. Deregulation of California's electricity market in the late 1990s forced the company to sell many of its power plants, though some were probably sold by choice. SCE retained its hydroelectric plants, totaling about 1,200 MW, and its 75% share of the 2,150-MW San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station. The plant, which hasn't produced power since 2012, is being decommissioned. In addition to its electric business, SCE operates the sole gas utility and water utility on Santa Catalina Island, under the names Catalina Island Gas Company and Catalina Island Water Company. History The origins of the company lie with the grand scheme of business ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Regulatory Benchmarking
Regulation is the management of complex systems according to a set of rules and trends. In systems theory, these types of rules exist in various fields of biology and society, but the term has slightly different meanings according to context. For example: * in government, typically regulation (or its plural) refers to the delegated legislation which is adopted to enforce primary legislation; including land-use regulation * in economy: regulatory economics * in finance: financial regulation * in business, industry self-regulation occurs through self-regulatory organizations and trade associations which allow industries to set and enforce rules with less government involvement; and, * in biology, gene regulation and metabolic regulation allow living organisms to adapt to their environment and maintain homeostasis; * in psychology, self-regulation theory is the study of how individuals regulate their thoughts and behaviors to reach goals. Forms Regulation in the social, political ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Integrated Resource Planning
Integrated resource planning (IRP, also least-cost utility planning, LCUP) is a form of least-cost planning used by the public utilities. The goal is to meet the expected long-term growth of demand with minimal cost, using a wide selection of means, from supply-side (increasing production and/or purchasing the supply) to demand-side (reducing the consumption). For example, for an electric utility the US law defines IRP as a planning process that evaluates the full range of alternatives, including new generating capacity, power purchases, energy conservation and efficiency, cogeneration and district heating and cooling applications. (19) The methodology requires the utility to be able to influence all aspects of the supply chain from production to consumption, so in the US it is used by many vertically integrated ( non-deregulated) ones. IRP effectively ends with deregulation. The deregulated utilities (the ones that are customer-facing, without the generation plants) still can enga ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Smart Grid
The smart grid is an enhancement of the 20th century electrical grid, using two-way communications and distributed so-called intelligent devices. Two-way flows of electricity and information could improve the delivery network. Research is mainly focused on three systems of a smart grid – the infrastructure system, the management system, and the protection system. Electronic power conditioning and control of the production and distribution of electricity are important aspects of the smart grid. The smart grid represents the full suite of current and proposed responses to the challenges of electricity supply. Numerous contributions to the overall improvement of energy infrastructure efficiency are anticipated from the deployment of smart grid technology, in particular including Demand side management, demand-side management. The improved flexibility of the smart grid permits greater penetration of highly variable renewable energy sources such as solar power and wind powe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Vertically Integrated Electric Utility
In microeconomics, management and international political economy, vertical integration, also referred to as vertical consolidation, is an arrangement in which the supply chain of a company is integrated and owned by that company. Usually each member of the supply chain produces a different product or (market-specific) service, and the products combine to satisfy a common need. It contrasts with horizontal integration, wherein a company produces several items that are related to one another. Vertical integration has also described management styles that bring large portions of the supply chain not only under a common ownership but also into one corporation (as in the 1920s when the Ford River Rouge complex began making much of its own steel rather than buying it from suppliers). Vertical integration can be desirable because it secures supplies needed by the firm to produce its product and the market needed to sell the product, but it can become undesirable when a firm's actions ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Distributed Generation
Distributed generation, also distributed energy, on-site generation (OSG), or district/decentralized energy, is electrical generation and storage performed by a variety of small, grid-connected or distribution system-connected devices referred to as distributed energy resources (DER). Conventional power stations, such as coal-fired, gas, and nuclear powered plants, as well as hydroelectric dams and large-scale solar power stations, are centralized and often require electric energy to be transmitted over long distances. By contrast, DER systems are decentralized, modular, and more flexible technologies that are located close to the load they serve, albeit having capacities of only 10 megawatts (MW) or less. These systems can comprise multiple generation and storage components; in this instance, they are referred to as hybrid power systems. DER systems typically use renewable energy sources, including small hydro, biomass, biogas, solar power, wind power, and geothermal pow ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
William Baumol
William Jack Baumol (February 26, 1922 – May 4, 2017) was an American economist. He was a professor of economics at New York University, Academic Director of the Berkley Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation, and professor emeritus at Princeton University. He was a prolific author of more than eighty books and several hundred journal articles. He is the namesake of the Baumol effect. Baumol wrote extensively about labor market and other economic factors that affect the economy. He also made significant contributions to the theory of entrepreneurship and the history of economic thought. He is among the most influential economists in the world according to IDEAS/RePEc. He was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1971, the American Philosophical Society in 1977, and the United States National Academy of Sciences in 1987. Baumol was considered a candidate for the Nobel Prize in Economics for 2003, and Thomson Reuters cited him as a potential reci ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
NSTAR (company)
NSTAR was a utility company that provided retail electricity and natural gas to 1.4 million customers in eastern and central Massachusetts, including the Boston urban area. NSTAR became a subsidiary of Northeast Utilities in April 2012. In February 2015, Northeast Utilities and all of its operating companies (Western Massachusetts Electric, Public Service New Hampshire, Connecticut Light and Power, Yankee Gas, and NSTAR Gas and Electric) became one large company known as Eversource Energy. History NSTAR was formed in 1999 by the merger of BEC Energy and Commonwealth Energy System and had the following operating units: Boston Edison Company, Cambridge Electric Light Company, Commonwealth Electric Company, and NSTAR Gas Company (formerly Commonwealth Gas and Cambridge Gas Company). As a part of deregulation of the local electrical power industry, NSTAR has divested itself of all electric generation facilities, keeping only those elements of the business which remain regulated. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Regulation
Regulation is the management of complex systems according to a set of rules and trends. In systems theory, these types of rules exist in various fields of biology and society, but the term has slightly different meanings according to context. For example: * in government, typically regulation (or its plural) refers to the delegated legislation which is adopted to enforce primary legislation; including Land-use planning, land-use regulation * in economy: regulatory economics * in finance: financial regulation * in business, industry self-regulation occurs through self-regulatory organizations and trade associations which allow industries to set and enforce rules with less government involvement; and, * in biology, gene regulation and metabolic regulation allow living organisms to adapt to their environment and maintain homeostasis; * in psychology, self-regulation theory is the study of how individuals regulate their thoughts and behaviors to reach goals. Forms Regulation in the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Southern California Gas Company
The Southern California Gas Company (trading as SoCalGas) is a utility company based in Los Angeles, California, and a subsidiary of Sempra. It is the primary provider of natural gas to Los Angeles and Southern California. Overview Its headquarters are located in Gas Company Tower in downtown Los Angeles. SoCalGas provides natural gas service for approximately 21.6 million customers, spanning roughly 20,000 square miles of California, extending from Visalia in the north to the Mexican border in the south. Gas service for San Diego County is provided by sister utility San Diego Gas & Electric, and Southwest Gas and the Long Beach Gas & Oil Department (LBGO) carve out small portions of the Southern California area for natural gas delivery. The company provides gas service for all or part of the following counties: *Fresno * Imperial * Kern * Kings *Los Angeles * Orange * Riverside * San Bernardino *San Luis Obispo * Santa Barbara * Tulare * Ventura History This gas compa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
San Diego Gas & Electric
San Diego Gas & Electric (SDGE or SDG&E) is a regulated public utility that provides natural gas and electricity to San Diego County and southern Orange County in southwestern California, United States. It is owned by Sempra, a ''Fortune'' 500 energy services holding company based in San Diego. SDGE provides energy service to 3.3 million consumers through 1.4 million electric meters and more than 840,000 natural gas meters. The utility's area spans 4,100 square miles (10,600 square kilometers). SDGE employs about 5,000 people. Generation portfolio In 2004, the California Public Utilities Commission approved SDGE's long-term energy resource plan, which relies on a balanced mix of resources to meet the growing energy needs of San Diego. That mix includes increased emphasis on energy efficiency, more renewable energy resources, and additional baseload generation plants and transmission capacity. In 2014 SDGE had a renewables mix of 36.4%, more than the 33% requirement by 2020 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
