Related Companies
Jim Rogers, Chairman, President, & CEO of Duke Energy, spoke on the potential for new demand-side energy technologies at the IEE’s Powering the People event in March 2013. He highlighted Pulse Energy as a company that will fundamentally change the future of energy productivity.
Source: Pulse Energy
Utilities
Xcel Energy is planning a range of new programs to dissuade Boulder from moving ahead with programs for a municipal utility. The initiatives aim to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, from creating tiered rate structures that entire communities could opt into to allowing customers to pay the difference between what it costs Xcel to power down coal plants and burn natural gas instead.
Source: Daily Camera
Eight months after utilities in the region experienced their most devastating storm, customers ranked PPL Electric Utilities No. 1 in satisfaction among large electric companies in the eastern United States. In a survey of residential customers by consumer research firm J.D. Power and Associates, PPL ranked first among 17 large Eastern utilities for the second year in a row.
Source: The Morning Call
The Sacramento Municipal Utility District is training a group of high school juniors and seniors to perform energy-efficiency audits for their school. The $300,000 project is paid for through carbon sales under California’s cap and trade system.
Source: Capital Public Radio
Utilities – Personnel
The U.S. Department of Energy replaced the top executive of the Bonneville Power Administration, Bill Drummond, with Elliot Mainzer, deputy administrator, to step in as the agency’s administrator. The Energy Department is reportedly conducting a management review of BPA’s use of veterans preferences in hiring.
Source: Oregon Live
Sean Trauschke has been named president of Oklahoma Gas and Electric Co., as parent company OGE Energy Corp. begins to lay out its succession plan. OGE Energy CEO Pete Delaney had been president since Danny Harris retired in December 2011.
Source: NewsOK
Derek Porter, an executive of The AES Corporation (AES) for five years, has been named president of DPL Inc. (DPL) and The Dayton Power and Light Company (DP&L). Most recently Porter served as country manager in Panama where he led the country’s largest electricity generator operating five hydroelectric plants.
Source: DPL
Institutions, Cities & States
The Ontario government has named conservation its top priority in energy planning. The province has released a report, ‘Conservation First’, to guide discussion and help develop a new Conservation and Demand Management framework.
Source: Energy Manager
New England’s power grid operator asked customers to conserve electricity during a regional heatwave. ISO-New England asked for voluntary conservation as temperatures over 100ºF across the Northeast increased energy demand.
Source: Boston.com
Pacific Northwest National Laboratory must cut 50 to 75 positions by Oct. 1, the start of the next fiscal year. The lab projects an anticipated shortfall of $16 million in overhead funding for fiscal 2014, based on discussions in the U.S. House and Senate.
Source: Tri-City Herald
North America
Barclays appears headed for court after the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission said it was imposing a record $435 million fine on the U.K. bank for allegedly manipulating electricity markets. Barclays contends the charges are baseless and said that “we intend to vigorously defend this matter in federal court, where the FERC will have the burden of proving its allegations and we will be able to present a balanced and full presentation of the facts.”
Source: The Wall Street Journal
JP Morgan & Co. is in discussions with U.S. electricity regulators about paying what would be a record fine to settle allegations that the bank manipulated electricity markets in California and the Midwest. The fine, they said, likely will be larger than the record $435 million fine levied by FERC on Tuesday against British bank Barclays (above).
Source: The Wall Street Journal
Gina McCarthy is the new administrator at the Environmental Protection Agency after the U.S. Senate voted 59-40 to confirm her nomination. McCarthy is an environmental health and air quality expert who will be tasked with fulfilling the administration’s climate change agenda and finalizing proposed greenhouse gas guidelines for existing power plants by 2015.
Source: International Business Times
The Department of Energy (DOE) announced an award of $10 million for six projects to help small commercial buildings save money by saving energy. The projects will be supported by $14 million in private funding, and include initiatives for BlocPower and EcoCity Partners.
Source: Electric Light & Power
International
Less than one quarter of consumers trust their utilities, according to an annual survey by Accenture of more than 11,000 consumers in 21 countries. Accenture’s New Energy Consumer research shows that just 24 percent of consumers trust their utility to inform them of actions they can take to optimize energy consumption – a decrease of nine percentage points from 2012.
Source: Accenture
According to Navigant Research, the number of demand response (DR) sites worldwide will reach 21.9 million by 2020, growing from 10.3 million in 2013. DR is a relatively mature market in the United States but other regions will see rapid growth, particularly in Europe and Asia.
Source: Navigant Research
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