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Are you ready for electricity futures

Journal Article · · Cogeneration Journal; (United States)
OSTI ID:7142874
 [1]
  1. New York Mercantile Exchange, NY (United States)

This paper reports on electricity futures. Nonregulated independent power companies have been stepping into the market. They received a real boost in the late 1970s when the Public Utility Regulatory Policy Act gave special status to cogenerators who supplied steam to industrial customers and electricity to the local utility. Now, years later, most of the commercially attractive steam customers are spoken for, and the next logical trend is emerging, or actually has been underway for several years: the establishment of independent generating companies who can negotiate wholesale power prices based on market forces. The market began swinging toward the independent generators when it became evident that there were serious flaws in the way in which the industry built new generating capacity. zealous regulation-as well as managerial shortfalls-drove the cost of building new power plants so high that utilities, in a major shift of policy, made every effort not to build new generating facilities if it was at all possible to obtain power supplies elsewhere, or to reduce demand through programs such as demand-side management.

OSTI ID:
7142874
Journal Information:
Cogeneration Journal; (United States), Journal Name: Cogeneration Journal; (United States) Vol. 9:5; ISSN COGJED; ISSN 0883-5985
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English