Trends in R and D reflect strategies for deregulation
Whether the electric power industry is technology-driven or market-driven, research and development (R and D) will play a critical role in fomenting and cementing a utility`s long-term competitive position. And as competition heats up, so will the drive for proprietary technologies, thus limiting the number of potential collaborators. From the private side of investment, R and D spending is constrained by an unpredictable future for the electric power industry. And the news is even worse for generation than other sectors of the industry. R and D money, which in the past was more narrowly focused on power generation, transmission, and distribution technologies, will be more widely spread to include technologies outside of the core business. At the very least, only those entities that plan to generate electricity can be expected to fund R and D for that purpose. Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI, Palo Alto, Calif.), the Gas Research Institute (GRI), and others are putting funds into distributed generation. GRI in particular is involved in collaborative advanced gas-turbine (CAGT) projects that studies ways to use intercooled aeroderivative-type machines. GRI sees a market for gas turbine with costs and efficiencies somewhere between today`s simple- and combined-cycle configurations.
- OSTI ID:
- 438749
- Journal Information:
- Power (New York), Vol. 140, Issue 9; Other Information: PBD: Nov-Dec 1996
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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