Lacking

While most utilities, regulators, marketing companies and consumers agree that hedging is an effective tool that utility companies should use in managing commodity price risk, most also say the current regulatory process is inadequate to enable utilities to effectively deal with the price problems that exist today, according to a survey by Calgary-based consulting firm RiskAdvisory, a unit of SAS.

While the odds of the U.S. getting hit by another blackout on the scale of the one last year on Aug. 14 appear to be “a little less likely” as the country approaches the one-year anniversary of that historic event, David Brown, a vice-president at NUS Consulting, believes that there hasn’t been adequate follow through on a final report examining the outage completed by a joint U.S.-Canada task force earlier this year.

North America’s apparent dwindling natural gas reserves pose a long-term challenge, but continued price volatility, contractual uncertainty and growing political pressure for regulators to “do something” also have to be addressed to restore confidence in the marketplace, an industry panel concluded Thursday.

North America’s apparent dwindling natural gas reserves pose a long-term challenge, but continued price volatility, contractual uncertainty and growing political pressure for regulators to “do something” also have to be addressed to restore confidence in the marketplace, an industry panel concluded Thursday.

For the third-straight trading session, natural gas futures tumbled early, but quickly stabilized Monday as traders continue to view the market with apprehension. On one side is the market’s seasonal tendency to rally in September; on the other is the bearish storage and weather outlook.

There’s plenty of capital available for investment in the transmission sector, but that money isn’t flowing more freely because of a lack of certainty that continues to permeate much of the power industry, a Senate hearing looking at the financial condition of the electric market was told last Tuesday.

Western energy infrastructure is inadequate to handle the significant gas and power demand growth expected to occur over the next five years, according to a study released last week by the staff of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.

Gas demand from new power plants in the West is expected increase 59% or about 2.9 Bcf/d over current levels over the next five years, putting a significant strain on an already stressed gas delivery system, according to a new comprehensive assessment of western energy infrastructure by FERC staff. The findings on the western gas market made up a portion of staff’s overall assessment, which concluded that numerous inherent problems could short circuit the western power grid in the future, potentially causing power supply shortages and higher prices. The study was scheduled to be presented to the Commission on Wednesday at its regular meeting.

Gas demand from new power plants in the West is expected increase 59% or about 2.9 Bcf/d over current levels over the next five years, putting a significant strain on an already stressed gas delivery system, according to a new comprehensive assessment of western energy infrastructure by FERC staff. The findings on the western gas market made up a portion of staff’s overall assessment, which concluded that numerous inherent problems could short circuit the western power grid in the future, potentially causing power supply shortages and higher prices. The study was scheduled to be presented to the Commission on Wednesday at its regular meeting.