Municipal Financings of New Power Supply Resources – A Complex Undertaking
Few things touch every person and community in our country like infrastructure systems. Whether it be transportation, water, gas, or electricity infrastructure systems, they are all vitally important both commercially and personally and impact our lives on a daily basis. Unfortunately, quite often we take them for granted and while we all agree that these systems are vitally important, according to the American Society of Civil Engineers, the current state of infrastructure in America is very poor with the majority of infrastructure systems receiving grades below a “C”, even worse, the United States energy infrastructure received a “D+” grade. In this regard, our electric infrastructure systems need a SUPER HERO and public power municipal utilities have the capability to save the day! However, replacing and improving infrastructure takes careful planning and is extremely capital intensive.
READ FULL ARTICLE
Utility Communications in Regional Transmission Organizations
As each RTO has evolved and matured its control and market models, the required quantity of data exchanged has grown and the accuracy and reliability requirements of that data have become increasingly important. Constructing a working, reliable, secure, and cost effective communications network that provides for the needs of the RTO, the Local Balancing Authority (LBA), generation power plants, and the electric utilities is a difficult task to accomplish. In some ways, communication systems have come a long ways from the early 1900’s “cordboard”; however, electric utilities face some complex RTO communications requirements in order to exchange data as well as developing and maintaining an integrated communications system.
READ FULL ARTICLE