electricity

Three years ago California regulators in quick succession approved nine multibillion-dollar solar thermal power plants. They were to be built in the desert and would generate 4,142 megawatts (MW) of carbon-free electricity. The state, it was said, was on its way to becoming the Saudi Arabia of solar. Read More »

Given that it will cost upward of $4 trillion over the next 20 years to modernize electricity, gas, and water lines, is it OK to allow utilities to tack on extra charges to customers' bills to pay for those upgrades? How can customers voice their opinions? The first question is one that utility regulators deal with on a daily basis. The second question is only just beginning to surface.

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The risk of a catastrophic solar storm that would leave countries including the United Kingdom and United States without electricity for days or even months will peak in 2015, a new report claims. Read More »

Questions remain over what caused the half-hour power outage during Sunday’s Super Bowl in New Orleans. What is clear is that advocates of improving the nation’s energy infrastructure see it as a metaphor. Read More »

Attention US utility executives: You have a decade at most before the boom in renewable energy makes your century-old business model as relevant as a rotary telephone. In the time it takes to get a transmission line built in California, solar energy production and other new technologies could render obsolete the monopoly business of selling electricity at a fixed price for a fixed profit to a captive audience of consumers.

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