This handbook serves as a guide to evaluate the feasibility of microgrid systems. It also provides information on microgrids for urban and industrial applications, considering current technological pathways and power system structures. Microgrids are poised to play a big role in the electricity ecosystem of the future-with decarbonization, digitalization, decentralization, and non-wires solutions being key attributes. The handbook will assist those working in the energy sector to evaluate a microgrid systems potential to enhance power supply quality and connectivity. It will also contribute to a better understanding about on-grid microgrids in urban and industrial settings, prevailing business models, and emerging trends that could shape the future of this sector.

Formally, Plunkett's Energy Industry Almanac, this in-depth reference tool to the energy industry covers everything from major oil companies to independents, utilities, pipelines, coal, LNG, oil field services, refiners and more. It features our famous trends and technologies analysis, and includes statistical tables, a glossary and our unique profiles of The Energy 500 Firms. The energy industry is boiling over with changes. Deregulation, new opportunities in foreign fields and markets, as well as environmental challenges are rushing together head-on to shape the energy and utilities business of the future. Meanwhile China has become a major energy importer and Russia has become a major exporter. Renewable and alternative energy sources are developing quickly, including big investments in wind power and solar power. This exciting new reference book covers everything from major oil companies to electric and gas utilities, plus pipelines, regulatory issues, investments, finance, research and development, refiners, retailers, oil field services and engineering. Petroleum topics include upstream and downstream. Additional topics include coal, natural gas and LNG. Statistical tables cover everything from energy consumption, production and reserves to imports, exports and prices. Next, our unique profiles of the Energy 500 Firms are also included, with such vital details as executive contacts by title, revenues, profits, types of business, Internet addresses, growth plans and more. You'll find a complete overview, industry analysis and market research report in one superb, value-priced package.

Central American countries spend approximately one percent of their aggregate gross domestic product subsidizing residential electricity consumption. This amount is comparable with what these countries spend on education and social assistance. The pressure that electricity subsidies exert on government budgets is particularly high when international energy prices rise. Electricity subsidies also provide perverse incentives for the overconsumption of electricity as households do not pay the true cost of their consumption, which in turn reduces incentives to increase energy efficiency. This book answers key questions regarding residential electricity subsidies in Central America. In particular: How do the subsidy mechanisms function in each country? What are their fiscal costs? Are these subsidies good value for the money? How efficient are subsidies in reaching households in need, and what drives this efficiency? What are the reform options? The main message of this book is that there is considerable scope for improving the efficiency of electricity subsidies in Central America by better targeting them to low-income households. The book shows that electricity subsidies help reduce the burden of electricity costs on the lowest-income groups. However, the existing electricity subsidy schemes are very inefficient at targeting resources to low-income households, with the majority of government spending going to higher-income households. Indeed, most countries in the region have the opportunity to significantly reduce the fiscal costs of electricity subsidies without imposing significant costs on households, particularly poor households. Given the limited fiscal space in the region and the major needs of the countries in terms of social services and physical infrastructure, this study seeks to provide Central American policymakers with the analytical foundations necessary to assess the costs and benefits of their electricity subsidy mechanisms, and design effective reform strategies that reflect their unique circumstances and policy priorities.

Wolfgang Schivelbusch tells the story of the development of artificial light in the nineteenth century. Not simply a history of a technology, Disenchanted Night reveals the ways that the technology of artificial illumination helped forge modern consciousness. In his strikingly illustrated and lively narrative, Schivelbusch discusses a range of subject including the political symbolism of street lamps, the rise of night-life and the shop-window, and the importance of the salon in bourgeois culture.

Electricity shortages are among the biggest barriers to South Asia's development. Some 255 million people - more than a quarter of the world's off-grid population - live in South Asia, and millions of households and firms that are connected experience frequent and long hours of blackouts. Inefficiencies originating in every link of the electricity supply chain contribute significantly to the power deficit. Three types of distortions lead to most of the inefficiencies: institutional distortions caused by state ownership and weak governance; regulatory distortions resulting from price regulation, subsidies, and cross-subsidies; and social distortions (externalities) causing excessive environmental and health damages from energy use. Using a common analytical framework and covering all stages of power supply, In the Dark identifies and estimates how policy-induced distortions have affected South Asian economies. The book introduces two innovations. First, it goes beyond fiscal costs, evaluating the impact of distortions from a welfare perspective by measuring the impact on consumer wellbeing, producer surplus, and environmental costs. And second, the book adopts a broader definition of the sector that covers the entire power supply chain, including upstream fuel supply and downstream access and reliability. The book finds that the full cost of distortions in the power sector is far greater than previously estimated based on fiscal cost alone: The estimated total economic cost is 4-7 percent of the gross domestic product in Bangladesh, India, and Pakistan. Some of the largest costs are upstream and downstream. Few other reforms could quickly yield the huge economic gains that power sector reform would produce. By expanding access to electricity and improving the quality of supply, power sector reform would also directly benefit poor households. The highest payoffs are likely to come from institutional reforms, expansion of reliable access, and the appropriate pricing of carbon and local air pollution emissions.

The 2016 Electricity Profiles contains electricity profiles for about 230 countries and territories, providing detailed information on production, trade and consumption of electricity, net installed capacity and thermal power plant input and efficiency for most countries, on an internationally comparable basis. It is published by the United Nations Statistics Division with the aim of providing an overall picture of the electricity sector of such countries and areas. Electricity production and electric installed capacity are disaggregated by source, as coming from Combustible fuels, Hydro, Nuclear and Other sources; and by type of producer, whether from main activity producers or autoproducers.

The Smart Grid is a modern electricity grid allowing for distributed, renewable intermittent generation, partly owned by consumers. This requires advanced control and communication technologies in order to provide high quality power supply and secure generation, transmission and distribution. This book outlines these emerging technologies. Topics covered include an introduction to smart grid architecture; smart grid communications and standards; measurement and sensing devices for smart grids; smart transmission and wide area monitoring system; bad data detection in smart grids; optimal energy management in smart grids; communication and control for the smart grid; smart consumer systems; importance of energy storage systems in smart grids; control and optimization for integration of plug-in vehicles in smart grids; multi-agent based control of smart grids; compressive sensing for smart grid security and reliability; optimum placement of FACTS devices in smart grids; security analysis of smart grid; and smart grid security policies and regulations. With contributions from prominent researchers in the fields of computer, communication, and power engineering this book is essential reading for researchers in power grids, as well as for advanced students and practitioners.

If you're lucky enough to be employed today in the United States, there's about a one-in-ten chance that you're in a labor union. And even if you re part of that unionized 10 percent, chances are your union doesn't carry much economic or political clout. But this was not always the case, as historian and activist James Young shows in this vibrant story of the United Electrical Workers Union. The UE, built by hundreds of rank-and-file worker-activists in the quintessentially industrial town of Erie, Pennsylvania, was able to transform the conditions of the working class largely because it went beyond the standard call for living wages to demand quantum leaps in worker control over workplaces, community institutions, and the policies of the federal government itself. James Young's book is a richly empowering history told from below, showing that the collective efforts of the many can challenge the supremacy of the few. Erie's two UE locals confronted a daunting array of obstacles: the corporate superpower General Electric; ferocious red baiting; and later, the debilitating impact of globalization. Yet, by working through and across ethnic, gender, and racial divides, communities of people built a viable working-class base powered by real democracy. While the union's victories could not be sustained completely, the UE is still alive and fighting in Erie. This book is an exuberant and eloquent testament to this fight, and a reminder to every worker employed or unemployed; in a union or out that an injury to one is an injury to all."

How the interplay between government regulation and the private sector has shaped the electric industry, from its nineteenth-century origins to twenty-first-century market restructuring. For more than a century, the interplay between private, investor-owned electric utilities and government regulators has shaped the electric power industry in the United States. Provision of an essential service to largely dependent consumers invited government oversight and ever more sophisticated market intervention. The industry has sought to manage, co-opt, and profit from government regulation. In The Power Brokers, Jeremiah Lambert maps this complex interaction from the late nineteenth century to the present day. Lambert's narrative focuses on seven important industry players: Samuel Insull, the principal industry architect and prime mover; David Lilienthal, chairman of the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA), who waged a desperate battle for market share; Don Hodel, who presided over the Bonneville Power Administration (BPA) in its failed attempt to launch a multi-plant nuclear power program; Paul Joskow, the MIT economics professor who foresaw a restructured and competitive electric power industry; Enron's Ken Lay, master of political influence and market-rigging; Amory Lovins, a pioneer proponent of sustainable power; and Jim Rogers, head of Duke Energy, a giant coal-fired utility threatened by decarbonization. Lambert tells how Insull built an empire in a regulatory vacuum, and how the government entered the electricity marketplace by making cheap hydropower available through the TVA. He describes the failed overreach of the BPA, the rise of competitive electricity markets, Enron's market manipulation, Lovins's radical vision of a decentralized industry powered by renewables, and Rogers's remarkable effort to influence cap-and-trade legislation. Lambert shows how the power industry has sought to use regulatory change to preserve or secure market dominance and how rogue players have gamed imperfectly restructured electricity markets. Integrating regulation and competition in this industry has proven a difficult experiment.

The Electrification of Russia, 1880-1926 is the first full account of the widespread adoption of electricity in Russia, from the beginning in the 1880s to its early years as a state technology under Soviet rule. Jonathan Coopersmith has mined the archives for both the tsarist and the Soviet periods to examine a crucial element in the modernization of Russia. Coopersmith shows how the Communist Party forged an alliance with engineers to harness the socially transformative power of this science-based enterprise. A centralized plan of electrification triumphed, to the benefit of the Communist Party and the detriment of local governments and the electrical engineers. Coopersmith's narrative of how this came to be elucidates the deep-seated and chronic conflict between the utopianism of Soviet ideology and the reality of Soviet politics and economics.

In the highly capital-intensive electricity supply industry, it is essential that both engineers and managers understand the methodologies of project evaluation in order to comprehend and analyse investment proposals and decisions. This updated and expanded edition of Economic Evaluation of Projects in the Electricity Supply Industry takes a broad introductory approach, covering planning and investment, financial analysis and evaluation, risk management, electricity trading, and strategies, technologies, national requirements and global agreements for electricity generation in a carbon-constrained world. Developments covered by this new edition include the changing mix of fuels in the power generation sector, greater involvement of the private sector in power generation investments through independent power producers, the important role of regulations, the growing interest in clean electricity generation, the economics of investing in renewables, the introduction of smart grids and intelligent meters and networks, and cyber security. Economic Evaluation of Projects in the Electricity Supply Industry, 3rd Edition is essential reading for academic and industrial engineers and economists concerned with energy supply, students of energy economics and planning, industry planners and project managers, and government and regulatory officials.

The acute energy problems facing China today are characterized by their own histories and realities. Some have come about because of China's energy endowment and stage of development, while others have been created by a combination of domestic and global factors. Some are the results of an accumulation of longstanding contradictions, while others are new challenges posed by the new order. There are no "miracle cures" to solve these problems instantly. What is needed is a tireless enquiry, with goals, planning and procedures, guided by a clear energy strategy. With China's increasing dependence on foreign energy sources, and the global energy situation and greenhouse gas issue exerting an increasingly prohibiting effect on China's energy development, energy diplomacy has become an important component of Chinese diplomatic affairs. Based on a "broad energy outlook", this book studies and analyzes China's energy issues and energy strategies from the perspective of electric power. * Discusses a variety of issues, including energy transportation and allocation, end-user consumption, markets, early warning and emergency, technical innovation * As a leading player in the power and energy area, China s strategies attracts global attention * Proposes the innovative idea of "Macro Energy Perspective" * As a key player in China's energy industrial circle, the author's perspective can help global audiences to understand China's energy strategies better Electric Power and Energy in China is ideal for government energy policy makers, engineers, scientists and enterprise managers to understand China s strategy in electric power and energy. It is also a good reference for energy economics researchers, consultants and university students.

Power theft causes a substantial loss of revenue to power utilities. Despite their efforts to crack down on power thieves and use of improved detection technology, power utilities have not been fully able to contain the unscrupulous ways used to steal power. This book, now in its Second Edition, discusses some of the startling methods used to commit power theft, and describes ways to identify, control and combat such power pilferage problems. The book provides a graphic description of the modus operandi of the power thieves and uncovers their ingenuity and imagination in pilfering electricity. To fight this menace of electricity theft, the book presents a vivid account of technical solutions that can go a long way in nipping the problem in the bud. The most striking feature of the book is that it uses suitable photographs to analyse the problems from several angles. In this edition, a new chapter containing major judgements of the Supreme Court as well as High Courts relating to power theft, and a new section on smart grid are included. The book will be of principal interest to professionals engaged in electricity boards, power utilities, power training institutes, and energy auditors and the law enforcement authorities. It will also be of practical interest to the students of Electrical Engineering to understand the metering technology, measuring principles and, above all, the methods used to analyse the causes of power theft.

Discover cutting-edge developments in electric power systems

Stemming from cutting-edge research and education activities in the field of electric power systems, this book brings together the knowledge of a panel of experts in economics, the social sciences, and electric power systems. In ten concise and comprehensible chapters, the book provides unprecedented coverage of the operation, control, planning, and design of electric power systems. It also discusses:

A framework for interdisciplinary research and education

Modeling electricity markets

Alternative economic criteria and proactive planning for transmission investment in deregulated power systems

Payment cost minimization with demand bids and partial capacity cost compensations for day-ahead electricity auctions

Dynamic oligopolistic competition in an electric power network and impacts of infrastructure disruptions

Reliability in monopolies and duopolies

Building an efficient, reliable, and sustainable power system

Risk-based power system planning integrating social and economic direct and indirect costs

Models for transmission expansion planning based on reconfiguration capacitor switching

Next-generation optimization for electric power systems

Most chapters end with a bibliography, closing remarks, conclusions, or future work. "Economic Market Design and Planning for Electric Power Systems" is an indispensable reference for policy-makers, executives and engineers of electric utilities, university faculty members, and graduate students and researchers in control theory, electric power systems, economics, and the social sciences.

This biography charts the life of Paddy Moriarty, the Kerryborn Chief Executive of ESB, a man who revolutionized corporate life during his leadership of the largest semi-state company in Ireland in the 1980s and 1990s. Born in Dingle in 1926, he became one of Ireland's leading business people of the twentieth century as he transformed ESB into a world-class electricity provider and a highly efficient, commercially driven company. Having built the power infrastructure of the new State, ESB played a critical role in the revitalization of the Irish economy and, on Moriarty's watch, proceeded to assist in developing the foundations of the Celtic Tiger economy. His vision was to make ESB 'the best electricity utility in the whole world', developing the highest standards of infrastructure at home while developing an international business in the economies of North and Central America, Africa, the Middle East and the Far East. Moriarty joined ESB as a clerical officer in June 1945 at the age of nineteen and quickly gained a reputation as a young man with a determined view on how business should be run. He rose rapidly through the company ranks. He was head of Research and Audit in 1961, Assistant Chief Financial Officer in 1967 and Director Personnel in 1970, before becoming Chief Executive in 1981 and Chairman ESB in 1991. The man they called Paddy Mo conducted comprehensive and difficult industrial relations negotiations with the trade unions, ensuring harmony in the workplace during the 1980s - a decade of fast-moving change, massive technological reform and associated redundancies. His interpersonal skills, as well as his business instincts, became legendary. With Taoiseach Charles Haughey he helped pioneer the North-South Erne Waterways project in a bid to revitalize border communities. He was also a significant patron of the arts, encouraging sponsorship of painters, sculptors and musicians. His wide-ranging interests included sports and horse racing, with one of the Leopardstown classics being named in his honour. A sense of family, which included his younger brother Micheal O Muircheartaigh the renowned GAA broadcaster and commentator, was central to his world view.

This book presents new and significant research on electric power. The world is becoming increasingly electrified. For the foreseeable future, coal will continue to be the dominant fuel used for electric power production. The low cost and abundance of coal is one of the primary reasons for this. Electric power transmission, a process in the delivery of electricity to consumers, is the bulk transfer of electrical power. Typically, power transmission is between the power plant and a substation near a populated area. Electricity distribution is the delivery from the substation to the consumers. Due to the large amount of power involved, transmission normally takes place at high voltage (110 kV or above). Electricity is usually transmitted over long distance through overhead power transmission lines. Underground power transmission is used only in densely populated areas due to its high cost of installation and maintenance, and because the high reactive power gain produces large charging currents and difficulties in voltage management. A power transmission system is sometimes referred to colloquially as a "grid"; however, for reasons of economy, the network is rarely a true grid. Redundant paths and lines are provided so that power can be routed from any power plant to any load centre, through a variety of routes, based on the economics of the transmission path and the cost of power. Much analysis is done by transmission companies to determine the maximum reliable capacity of each line, which, due to system stability considerations, may be less than the physical or thermal limit of the line. Deregulation of electricity companies in many countries has led to renewed interest in reliable economic design of transmission networks.

The blackout of 2003 illuminated just how dependent America is on electricity. It was not just that some 50 million people in eight states and Ontario were cut off from their televisions, microwaves, ATMs, and email. Without the electrical juice to keep their sockets alive, factory managers were forced to close production lines, city managers shut down water deliveries, grocery store clerks watched their frozen inventory slowly melt away. Economists estimated that the blackout cost Americans $5 billion even as energy analysts were predicting that a similar blackout could happen again. The catastrophe forced us to marvel at the unusual ability of sub-microscopic particles to move like waves inside a wire and cause bulbs to glow. It highlighted the complex requirements for managing the massive generators, transformers, transmission lines, and switch boxes needed to tap and deliver flowing electrons. It encouraged us to recognize the profound impact of electricity on all aspects of commerce and culture.

Such events as the blackout, the Enron debacle, and the California brownouts also reveal the cracks in a 100-year-old industry structure that have been building ever since Thomas Edison, George Westinghouse, and their contemporaries first managed to harness electricity and make it available to the masses, and tycoons, such as Sam Insull and George Norris, began to concentrate financial control and political influence. "From Edison to Enron" traces the controversial history of this $210 billion industry--the nation's largest--showcasing the key individuals, technological innovations, corporate machinations, and political battles that have been waged over its domination. Munson maintains that today's technological and regulatory infrastructure, as a function of its history, is a relic that has long outlived its usefulness; he points out that two-thirds of the fuel burned to generate electricity is lost, that Americans pay roughly $100 billion too much each year for heat and power, and that environmentally unfriendly generators are the nation's largest polluters. Meanwhile, innovations in technology and business models are being blocked by entrenched monopolies. Ultimately, Munson argues that current policies and practices, including those favored by the Bush Administration, are preventing entrepreneurs from producing more efficient, healthy, and sustainable power supplies. Moreover, he presents an agenda for business and policy reforms that will stimulate economic development in the United States and around the world.

Published in association with Institute for Development and Communication, ChandigarhA comprehensive review of the technical performance of the Punjab State Electricity Board and erstwhile Haryana State Electricity Board has been conducted to identify the key factors responsible for poor technical and financial performance. It has been observed that no reforms in power sector in general and of power distribution in particular will be successful unless the problem of theft and pilferage of power is tackled. To identify the dynamics of this ailment, a survey based study, of perceptions of the consumers and the employees regarding the theft and pilferage of power shows that the evil has got highly institutionalized and has acquired a social acceptability and legitimacy among consumers as well as employees. Pilferage of power is not just a technical problem; hence simple technical solutions will not be adequate. Passing of laws by itself does not ensure their enforcement. The attitude of the people towards publicly provided goods evolved over the last five decades needs a change for which social marketing strategies need to be evolved as necessary complement to the appropriate type of restructuring of the state electricity boards. Based on firm data and rigorous analysis, this book makes a case for suitable institutional interventions.

A lucid and up-to-date introduction to understanding electrical power utilities in an era of change

Electric utilities worldwide are undergoing profound transformations: nationally owned systems are becoming privatized, privately owned systems that were previously regulated are becoming deregulated, and national systems are becoming international.

Professionals in the power sector must now work in a new world in which an understanding of the principles of markets and how to evaluate investment projects under competition are essential.

This text was written as a manual for the Russian Federal Energy Commission to train regional electricity rate regulators in the principles of economics and finance involved in regulating electricity markets and deregulating electricity generation. Requiring no familiarity with economics and using a minimum of mathematics, this book provides professionals in the power sector with the tools to face the new realities of electric utility operation.

Designed both as a reference for practicing professionals and as a textbook for university and continuing education programs, Electricity Economics: Regulation and Deregulation discusses:

• The lessons learned from international experiences
• Competitive versus noncompetitive markets
• Cost and supply, profit, and economic efficiency
• The cost of capital, including net present value, discounting, and risk and return
• Wholesale power markets, generation expansion, and customer choice
• Specific international examples including the Californian, Norwegian, Spanish, and Argentine power sectors
• Plus numerous exercises to help clarify and support absorption of the concepts

Electricity markets world-wide are undergoing a transformation, as state-owned and vertically integrated monopolies are being replaced by competitive dynamics and private participation. Policy reforms driving this transformation include the corporatization and restructuring of state-owned utilities; the unbundling of generation, transmission, and distribution; the creation of independent regulators; and the promotion of private sector involvement in investment and management. This study reviews international reform trends and best practice in sector policy, with specific reference to Latin America. It documents how regulatory reform, privatization, and cross-border integration are unfolding throughout the European Single Market, triggered by EU legislation. This study also shows that sector performance and sector reforms in the southern Mediterranean countries are lagging considerably behind international trends. Finally, it argues that a number of reform initiatives at the national and regional level should be taken to promote policy reforms and cross-border integration in this sector. This would help the countries of North Africa and the Middle East to increase economic efficiency, consolidate public finances, attract foreign direct investment, and to more effectively 'plug into' the European Single Market on the northern shore of the Mediterranean Sea.

As fundamental changes in supplier-purchaser relationships are sweeping the industry, this newly revised handbook offers timely analysis and practical strategies for operating in this new environment.Written by electric regulation specialists from the Washington law firm of Reid & Priest, this edition includes all new coverage of least-cost planning, emissions allowances and trading, transmission access and energy imports. Explains the development of power purchasing options; provides sample power purchase agreements and describes key provisions; and reviews the current state of law in the field.

This book is unique in gathering under one over all the elements of electricity economics and planning, both for the traditional approach and for the new developments of the 1990s, e.g. privatisation, competition, deregulation and more efficient markets and pricing. All the fundamental institutional aspects of electricity in the 1990s are also discussed, particularly relevant at a time when the utilities of the developed world are being restructured, those of the ex-centrally planned economies are being profoundly reorganised and those of developing countries have enormous debt problems. The book describes how these challenges of the 1990s are to be understood and met.

Markets for Power provides an unusually complete analysis of the economic, technical, and institutional aspects of the electric utility industry. The authors evaluate four currently popular options for deregulating this unique segment of the economy, and in a balanced program for reform, they advise against total deregulation and recommend a cautious approach to even partial deregulation.Paul L. Joskow is Professor of Economics and Richard Schmalensee is Professor of Applied Economics, both at MIT

Early in the twentieth century, for-profit companies such as Duke Power and South Carolina Electric and Gas brought electricity to populous cities and towns across South Carolina, while rural areas remained in the dark. It was not until the advent of publicly owned electric cooperatives in the 1930s that the South Carolina countryside was gradually introduced to the conveniences of life with electricity. Today, electric cooperatives serve more than a quarter of South Carolina's citizens and more than seventy percent of the state's land area, bringing not only power but also high-speed broadband to rural communities.The rise of "public" power-electricity serviced by member-owned cooperatives and sanctioned by federal and state legislation-is a complicated saga encompassing politics, law, finance, and rural economic development. Empowering Communities examines how the cooperatives helped bring fundamental and transformational change to the lives of rural people in South Carolina, from light to broadband. James E. Clyburn, the majority whip of the U.S. House of Representatives from South Carolina, provides a foreword.