End nuclear with Pickering closure: critics

AI-Powered Utility Customer Experience enables transparency, real-time pricing, smart thermostats, demand response, and billing optimization, helping utilities integrate distributed energy resources, battery storage, and microgrids while boosting customer satisfaction and reducing costs.

Key Points

An approach where utilities use AI and real-time data to personalize service, optimize billing, and cut energy costs.

✅ Real-time pricing aligns retail and wholesale market signals

✅ Device control via smart thermostats and home energy management

✅ Analytics reveal appliance-level usage and personalized savings

The latest electric utility customer satisfaction survey results from the American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI) Energy Utilities report reveal that nearly every investor-owned utility saw customer satisfaction go down from 2018 to 2019. Residential customers are sending a clear message in the report: They want more transparency and control over energy usage, billing and ways to reduce costs.

With both customer satisfaction and utility revenues on the decline, utilities are facing daunting challenges to their traditional business models amid flat electricity demand across many markets today. That said, it is the utilities that see these changing times as an opportunity to evolve that will become the energy leaders of tomorrow, where the customer relationship is no longer defined by sales volume but instead by a utility company's ability to optimize service and deliver meaningful customer solutions.

We have seen how the proliferation of centralized and distributed renewables on the grid has already dramatically changed the cost profile of traditional generation and variability of wholesale energy prices. This signals the real cost drivers in the future will come from optimizing energy service with things like batteries, microgrids and peer-to-peer trading networks. In the foreseeable future, flat electricity rates may be the norm, or electricity might even become entirely free as services become the primary source of utility revenue.

The key to this future is technological innovation that allows utilities to better understand a customer’s unique needs and priorities and then deliver personalized, well-timed solutions that make customers feel valued and appreciated as their utility helps them save and alleviates their greatest pain points.

I predict utilities that adopt new technologies focused on customer experience, aligned with key utility trends shaping the sector, and deliver continual service improvements and optimization will earn the most satisfied, most loyal customers.

To illustrate this, look at how fixed pricing today is applied for most residential customers. Unless you live in one of the states with deregulated utilities where most customers are free to choose a service provider in a competitive marketplace, as consumers in power markets increasingly reshape offerings, fixed-rate tariffs or time-of-use tariffs might be the only rate structures you have ever known, though new utility rate designs are being tested nationwide today. These tariffs are often market distortions, bearing little relation to the real-time price that the utility pays on the wholesale market.

It can be easy enough to compare the rate you pay as a consumer and the market rate that utilities pay. The California ISO has a public dashboard -- as do other grid operators -- that shows the real-time marginal cost of energy. On a recent Friday, for example, a buyer in San Francisco could go to the real-time market and procure electricity at a rate of around 9.5 cents per kilowatt-hour (kWh), yet a residential customer can pay the utility PG&E between 22 cents and 49 cents per kWh amid major changes to electric bills being debated, depending on usage.

The problem is that utility customers do not usually see this data or know how to interpret it in a way that helps add value to their service or drive down the cost.

This is a scenario ripe for innovation. Artificial intelligence (AI) technologies are beginning to be applied to give customers the transparency and control over the energy they desire, and a new type of utility is emerging using real-time pricing signals from wholesale markets to give households hassle-free energy savings. Evolve Energy in Texas is developing a utility service model, even as Texas utilities revisit smart home network strategies, that delivers electricity to consumers at real-time market prices and connects to smart thermostats and other connected devices in the home for simple monitoring and control -- all managed via an intuitive consumer app.

My company, Bidgely, partners with utilities and energy retailers all over the world to apply artificial intelligence and machine learning algorithms to customer data in order to bring transparency to their electricity bills, showing exactly where the customers’ money is going down to the appliance and offering personalized, actionable advice on how to save.

Another example is from energy management company Keewi. Its wireless outlet adaptors are revealing real-time energy usage information to Texas A&M dorm residents as well as providing students the ability to conserve energy through controlling items in their rooms from their smartphones.

These are but a few examples of innovations among many in play that answer the consumer demand for increased transparency and control over energy usage.

Electric service providers will be closely watching how consumers respond to AI-driven innovation, including providers in traditionally regulated markets that are exploring equitable regulation approaches now, to stay aligned with policy and customer expectations. While regulated utilities have no reason to fear that their customers might sign up with a competitor, they understand that the revenues from electricity sales are going down and the deployment of distributed energy resources is going up. Both trends were reflected in a March report from Bloomberg New Energy Finance (via ThinkProgress) that claimed unsubsidized storage projects co-located with solar or wind are starting to compete with coal and gas for dispatchable power. Change is coming to regulated markets, and some of that change can be attributed to customer dissatisfaction with utility service.

Like so many industries before, the utility-customer relationship is on track to become less about measuring unit sales and more about driving revenue through services and delivering the best customer value. Loyal customers are most likely to listen and follow through on the utility’s advice and to trust the utility for a wide range of energy-related products and services. Utilities that make customer experience the highest priority today will emerge tomorrow as the leaders of a new energy service era.

Related News

• Electricity Forum News

• Energy Policy News

Taiwan Power Blackout disrupts Taipei and commercial hubs after a Taoyuan natural gas plant error, triggering nationwide outage, grid failure, elevator rescues, power rationing, and the economic minister's resignation, as CPC Corporation restores supply.

Key Points

A nationwide Taiwan outage from human error at a Taoyuan gas plant, triggering rationing and a minister's resignation.

✅ Human error disrupted natural gas supply at Taoyuan plant

✅ 6.68 million users affected; grid failure across cities

✅ Minister Lee resigned; President Tsai ordered a review

Taiwan's economic minister resigned after power was knocked out in many parts of Taiwan, with regional parallels such as China power cuts highlighting grid vulnerabilities, including capital Taipei's business and high-end shopping district, due to an apparent "human error" at a key power plant.

Economic Affairs minister Lee Chih-kung tendered his resignation verbally to Premier Lin Chuan, United Daily News reported, citing a Cabinet spokesman. Lin accepted the resignation, the spokesman said according to the daily.

As many as 6.68 million households and commercial units saw their power supply cut or disrupted on Tuesday after "human error" disrupted natural gas supply at a power plant in northern Taiwan's Taoyuan, the semi-official Central News Agency reported, citing the government-controlled oil company CPC Corporation as saying.

The company added that power at the plant, Taiwan's biggest natural gas power plant, resumed two minutes later.

In New Taipei City, there were at least 27,000 reported cases of people being stuck in lifts. Photos in social media also showed huge crowds stranded in lift lobby in Taipei's iconic 101-storey Taipei 101 building.

Power rationing was implemented beginning 6pm, and, as seen in the National Grid short supply warning in other markets, such steps aim to stabilize supply, Central News Agency said. Power supply was gradually being restored beginning at about 9:40pm. news reports said.

President Tsai Ing-wen apologised for the blackout, noting parallels with Japan's near-blackouts that underscored grid resilience, and said that she has ordered all relevant departments to produce clear report in the shortest time possible.

"Electricity is not just a problem about people's livelihoods but also a national security issue. A comprehensive review must be carried out to find out how the electric power system can be so easily paralysed by human error," said Ms Tsai in a Facebook post.

Taiwan has been at risk of a power shortage after a recent typhoon knocked down a power transmission tower in Hualien county along the eastern coast of Taiwan, rather than a demand-driven slowdown like the China power demand drop during pandemic factory shutdowns. This reduced the electricity supply by 1.3million kilowatts, or about 4 per cent of the operating reserve.

That was followed by the breakdown of a power generator at Taiwan's largest power plant, which further reduced the operating reserve by 1.5 per cent.

The situation is worsened by the ongoing heatwave that has hit Taiwan, with temperatures soaring to 38 degrees Celsius over the past week.

As a result, the government had imposed the rationing of electricity, and, highlighting how regional strains such as China's power woes can ripple into global markets, switched off all air-conditioning in many of its Taipei offices, a move that drew some public backlash.

Related News

• Electricity Forum News

• Power Generation News

Lebanon Power Barge Controversy spotlights Karadeniz Energy's Esra Sultan, Lebanon's electricity crisis, prolonged blackouts, and sectarian politics as Amal and Hezbollah clash over Zahrani vs Jiyeh docking and allocation across regions.

Key Points

A political dispute over the Esra Sultan power ship, its docking, and power allocation amid Lebanon's chronic blackouts.

✅ Karadeniz Energy lent a third barge at below-market rates.

✅ Docking disputes: Zahrani refused; Jiyeh limited; Zouq connected.

✅ Amal vs Hezbollah split exposes sectarian energy politics.

It was supposed to be a goodwill gesture from an energy company in Turkey.

This summer, the Karadeniz Energy Group lent Lebanon a floating power station to generate electricity at below-market rates to help ease the strain on the country's woefully undermaintained power sector.

Instead, the barge's arrival opened a Pandora's box of partisan mudslinging in a country hobbled by political sectarianism and dysfunction.

There have been rows over where it should dock, how to allocate its 235 megawatts of power, and even what to call the barge, echoing controversies like the Maine electric line debate that pit local politics against energy needs.

It has even driven a wedge between Lebanon's two dominant parties among Shiite Muslims: Amal and the militant group Hezbollah.

Amal, which has held the parliament speaker's seat since 1992, revealed sensationally last week it had refused to allow the boat to dock in a port in the predominantly Shiite south, even though it is one of the most underserved regions of Lebanon.

Power outages in the south can stretch on for more than 12 hours a day, much like the Gaza electricity crisis, according to regional observers.

Hezbollah, which normally stands pat with Amal in political matters, issued an exceptional statement that it had nothing to do with the matter of the barge at Zahrani port. A Hezbollah lawmaker went further to say his party disagreed on the issue with Amal.

Ali Hassan Khalil, Lebanon's Finance Minister and a leading Amal party member, said southerners wanted a permanent power station, not a stop-gap solution, in an implied dig at the rival Free Patriotic Movement, a Christian party that runs the Energy Ministry.

But critics seized on the statement as confirmation that Amal's leaders were in bed with the operators of private generators, who have been making fortunes selling electricity during blackouts at many times the state price.

"For decades there's been nothing stopping them from building a power plant," said Mohammad Obeid, a former Amal party official, in an interview with Lebanon's Al Jadeed TV station.

"Now there's a barge that's coming for three months to provide a few more hours of electricity -- and that's the issue?"

Hassan Khalil, reached by phone, refused to comment.

Nabih Berri, Amal's chief and Lebanon's parliament speaker, who has long been the subject of critical coverage from Al Jadeed's, sued the TV channel for libel on Wednesday for its reporting.

Energy Minister Cesar Abi Khalil, a Christian, lashed out at Amal, saying the ministry even changed the barge's name from Ayse, Turkish for Aisha, a name associated in Lebanon with Sunnis, to Esra Sultan, which does not carry any Shiite or Sunni connotations, to try to get it to dock in Zahrani.

Karadeniz said the barge was renamed "out of courtesy and respect to local customs and sensitivities."

"Ayse is a very common Turkish name, where such preferences are not as sensitive as in Lebanon," it said in a statement to The Associated Press.

Finally, on July 18, the barge docked in Jiyeh, a harbour south of Beirut but north of Zahrani, and in a religiously mixed Muslim area.

But two weeks later it was unmoored again, after Abi Khalil, the energy minister, said the infrastructure at Jiyeh could only handle 30 megawatts of the Esra Sultan's 235 capacity, and upgrades such as burying subsea cables are expensive.

With Zahrani closed to the Esra Sultan, it could only go to Zouq Mikhael, a port in the Christian-dominated Kesrouan region in the north, where it was plugged to the grid Tuesday night, giving the region almost 24 hours of electricity a day.

Lebanon has been contending with rolling blackouts since the days of its 1975-1990 civil war. Successive governments have failed to agree on a permanent solution for the chronic electricity failures, largely because of profiteering, endemic corruption and lack of political will, despite periodic pushes for electricity sector reform in Lebanon over the years.

In 2013, the Energy Ministry contracted with Karadeniz to buy electricity from a pair of its barges, which are still docked in Jiyeh and Zouq Mikhael.

This summer, Abi Khalil signed a new contract with Karadeniz to keep the barges for another three years. As part of the deal, Karadeniz agreed to lend Lebanon the third barge, the Esra Sultan, to produce electricity for three months at no cost - Lebanon would just have to pay for the fuel.

The company said Lebanon's internal squabbles do not affect how long the Esra Sultan would stay in Lebanon, even amid wider sector volatility and the pandemic's impact highlighted in a recent financial update. It arrived on July 18 and it will leave on Oct. 18, it said.

Related News

• Electricity Forum News

• Energy Policy News

BPA Privatization would sell the Bonneville Power Administration's transmission lines, raising FERC-regulated grid rates for ratepayers, impacting hydropower and the California-Oregon Intertie under the Trump 2018 budget proposal in the Pacific Northwest region.

Key Points

Selling Bonneville's transmission grid to private owners, raising rates and returns, shifting costs to ratepayers.

✅ Trump 2018 budget targets BPA transmission assets for sale.

✅ Higher capital costs, taxes, and profit would raise transmission rates.

✅ California-Oregon Intertie and hydropower flows face price impacts.

President Trump's 2018 budget proposal is so chock-full of noxious elements — replacing food stamps with "food boxes," drastically cutting Medicaid and Medicare, for a start — that it's unsurprising that one of its most misguided pieces has slipped under the radar.

That's the proposal to privatize the government-owned Bonneville Power Administration, which owns about three-quarters of the high-voltage electric transmission lines in a region that includes California, Washington state and Oregon, serving more than 13.5 million customers. By one authoritative estimate, any such sale would drive up the cost of transmission by 26%-44%.

The $5.2-billon price cited by the Trump administration, moreover, is nearly 20% below the actual value of the Bonneville grid — meaning that a private buyer would pocket an immediate windfall of $1.2 billion, at the expense of federal taxpayers and Bonneville customers.

Trump's plan for Portland, Ore.-based Bonneville is part of a larger proposal to sell off other government-owned electricity bodies, including the Colorado-based Western Area Power Administration and the Oklahoma-based Southwestern Power Administration. But Bonneville is by far the largest of the three, accounting for nearly 90% of the total $5.8 billion the budget anticipates collecting from the sales. The proposal is also part of the administration's

Both plans are said to be politically dead-on-arrival in Washington. But they offer a window into the thinking in the Trump White House.

"The word 'muddle' comes to mind," says Robert McCullough, a respected Portland energy consultant, referring to the justification for the privatization sale included in the Trump budget.

The White House suggests that selling the Bonneville grid would result in lower costs. But that narrative, McCullough wrote in a blistering assessment of the proposal, "displays a severe lack of understanding about the process of setting transmission rates."

McCullough's assessment is an update of a similar analysis he performed when the privatization scheme was first raised by the Trump administration last year. In that analysis issued in June, McCullough said the proposal "raises the question of why these valuable assets would be sold at a discount — and who would get the benefit of the discounted price."

The implications of a sale could be dire for Californians. Bonneville is the majority owner of the California-Oregon Intertie, an electrical transmission system that carries power, including Columbia River-generated hydropower and other clean-energy generation in British Columbia that supports the regional exchange, south to California in the summer and excess California generation to the Pacific Northwest in the winter.

But the idea has drawn fire throughout the region. When it was first broached last year, the Public Power Council, an association of utilities in the Northwest, assailed it as an apparent "transfer of value from the people of the Northwest to the U.S. Treasury," drawing parallels to Manitoba Hydro governance issues elsewhere.

The region's political leaders had especially harsh words for the idea this time around. "Oregonians raised hell last year when Trump tried to raise power bills for Pacific Northwesterners by selling off Bonneville Power, and yet his administration is back at it again," Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) said after the idea reappeared. "Our investment shouldn't be put up for sale to free up money for runaway military spending or tax cuts for billionaires." Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) promised in a statement to work to "stop this bad idea in its tracks."

The notion of privatizing Bonneville predates the Trump administration; it was raised by Bill Clinton and again by George W. Bush, who thought the public would gain if the administration could sell its power at market rates. Both initiatives failed.

The same free-enterprise ideology underlies the Trump proposal. Privatizing the transmission lines "encourages a more efficient allocation of economic resources and mitigates unnecessary risk to taxpayers," the budget asserts. "Ownership of transmission assets is best carried out by the private sector where there are appropriate market and regulatory incentives."

But that's based on a misunderstanding of how transmission rates are set, McCullough says. Transmission is essentially a monopoly enterprise, with rates overseen by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission based on the grid's costs, and with federal scrutiny of public utilities such as the TVA underscoring that oversight. There's very little in the way of market "incentives" involved in transmission, since no one has come forward to build a competing grid.

Those include the owners' cost of capital — which would be much higher for a private owner than a government agency, McCullough observes, as Hydro One investor uncertainty demonstrates in practice. A private owner, unlike the government-owned Bonneville, also would owe federal income taxes, which would be passed on to consumers.

Then there's the profit motive. Bonneville "currently sells and delivers its power at cost," McCullough wrote last year. "Under a private regime, an investor-owned utility would likely charge a higher rate of return, a pattern seen when UK network profits drew regulatory rebukes."

None of these considerations appears to have been factored into the White House budget proposal. "Either there's an unsophisticated person at the Office of Management and Budget thinking up these numbers himself," McCullough told me, "or there would seem to be ongoing negotiations with an unidentified third party." No such buyer has emerged in the past, however.

What's left is a blind faith in the magic of the market, compounded by ignorance about how the transmission market operates. Put it together, and there's reason to wonder if Trump is even serious about this plan.

Related News

• Electricity Forum News

• T&D Business News

EU Gas Price Cap Strategies aim to curb inflation during an energy crisis by capping wholesale gas and electricity generation costs, balancing supply and demand, mitigating subsidies, and safeguarding supply security amid Russia-Ukraine shocks.

Key Points

Temporary EU measures to cap gas and power prices, curb inflation, manage demand, and protect supply security.

✅ Flexible temporary price limits to secure gas supplies

✅ Framework cap on gas for electricity generation with demand checks

✅ Risk: subsidies, higher demand, and market distortions

The European Commission has outlined possible strategies to cap gas prices as the bloc faces a looming energy crisis this winter. 

Member states are divided over the emergency measures designed to pull down soaring inflation amid Russia's war in Ukraine. 

One proposal is a temporary "flexible" limit on gas prices to ensure that Europe can continue to secure enough gas, EU energy commissioner Kadri Simson said on Tuesday. 

Another option could be an EU-wide "framework" for a price cap on gas used to generate electricity, which would be combined with measures to ensure gas demand does not rise as a result, she said.

EU leaders are meeting on Friday to debate gas price cap strategies amid warnings that Europe's energy nightmare could worsen this winter.

Last week, France, Italy, Poland and 12 other EU countries urged the Commission to propose a broader price cap targeting all wholesale gas trade. 

But Germany -- Europe's biggest gas buyer -- and the Netherlands are among those opposing electricity market reforms within the bloc.

Russia has slashed gas deliveries to Europe since its February invasion of Ukraine, with Moscow blaming the cuts on Western sanctions imposed in response to the invasion, as the EU advances a plan to dump Russian energy across the bloc.

Since then, the EU has agreed on emergency laws to fill gas storage and windfall profit levies to raise money to help consumers with bills. 

Price cap critics
One energy analyst told Euronews that an energy price cap was an "unchartered territory" for the European Union. 

The EU's energy sector is largely liberalised and operates under the fundamental rules of supply and demand, making rolling back electricity prices complex in practice.

"My impression is that member states are looking at prices and quantities in isolation and that's difficult because of economics," said Elisabetta Cornago, a senior energy researcher at the Centre for European Reform.

"It's hard to picture such a level of market intervention This is uncharted territory."

The energy price cap would "quickly start costing billions" because it would force governments to continually subsidise the difference between the real market price and the artificially capped price, another expert said. 

"If you are successful and prices are low and you still get gas, consumers will increase their demand: low price means high demand. Especially now that winter is coming," said Bram Claeys, a senior advisor at the Regulatory Assistance Project. 

Related News

• Electricity Forum News

• Energy Policy News

FirstEnergy Nuclear Plant Closures threaten Ohio and Pennsylvania jobs, tax revenue, and grid stability, as Nuclear Matters and Brattle Group warn of higher carbon emissions and market pressures from PJM and cheap natural gas.

Key Points

Planned shutdowns of Davis-Besse, Perry, and Beaver Valley, with regional economic and carbon impacts.

✅ Over 3,000 direct jobs and local tax revenue at risk

✅ Emissions may rise until renewables scale, possibly into 2034

✅ Debate over subsidies, market design, and PJM capacity rules

A national nuclear lobby wants to remind people what's at stake for Ohio and Pennsylvania if FirstEnergy Solutions follows through with plans to shut down three nuclear plants over the next three years, including its Davis-Besse nuclear plant east of Toledo.

A report issued Monday by Nuclear Matters largely echoes concerns raised by FES, a subsidiary of FirstEnergy Corp., and other supporters of nuclear power about economic and environmental hardships and brownout risks that will likely result from the planned closures.

Along with Davis-Besse, Perry nuclear plant east of Cleveland and the twin-reactor Beaver Valley nuclear complex west of Pittsburgh are slated to close.

#google#

"If these plants close, the livelihoods of thousands of Ohio and Pennsylvania residents will disappear. The over 3,000 highly skilled individuals directly employed by these sites will leave to seek employment at other facilities still operating around the country," Lonnie Stephenson, International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers president, said in a statement distributed by Nuclear Matters. Mr. Stephenson also serves on the Nuclear Matters advocacy council.

This new report and others like it are part of an extensive campaign by nuclear energy advocates to court state and federal legislators one more time for tens of millions of dollars of financial support or at least legislation that better suits the nuclear industry. Critics allege such pleas amount to a request for massive government bailouts, arguing that deregulated electricity markets should not subsidize nuclear.

The latest report was prepared for Nuclear Matters by the Brattle Group, a firm that specializes in analyzing economic, finance, and regulatory issues for corporations, law firms, and governments.

"These announced retirements create a real urgency to learn what would happen if these plants are lost," Dean Murphy, the Brattle report's lead author, said.

More than 3,000 jobs would be lost, as would millions of dollars in tax revenue. It also could take as long as 2034 for the region's climate-altering carbon emissions to be brought back down to existing levels, based on current growth projections for solar- and wind-powered projects, and initiatives such as ending coal by 2032 by some utilities, Mr. Murphy said.

His group's report only takes into account nuclear plant operations, though. Many of those who oppose nuclear power have long pointed out that mining uranium for nuclear plant fuel generates substantial emissions, as does the process of producing steel cladding for fuel bundles and the enrichment-production of that fuel. Still, nuclear has ranked among the better performers in reports that have taken such a broader look at overall emissions.

FES has accused the regional grid operator, PJM Interconnection, of creating market conditions that favor natural gas and, thus, make it almost impossible for nuclear to compete throughout its 13-state region, a debate intensified by proposed electricity pricing changes at the federal level.

PJM has strongly denied those accusations, and has said it anticipates no shortfalls in energy distribution if those nuclear plants close prematurely, even as a recent FERC decision on grid policy drew industry criticism.

FES, citing massive losses, has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. The target dates for closures of the FES properties are May 31, 2020 for Davis-Besse; May 31, 2021 for Perry and Beaver Valley Unit 1, and Oct. 31, 2021 for Beaver Valley Unit 2.

In addition to the three FES sites, the report includes information about the Three Mile Island Unit 1 plant near Harrisburg, Pa., which Chicago-based Exelon Generation Corp. has previously announced will be shut down in 2019. That plant and others are experiencing similar difficulties the FES plants face by competing in a market radically changed by record-low natural gas prices.

Related News

• Electricity Forum News

• Power Generation News