2016 Dive Awards for the Utility Industry

North America -

The Clean Power Plan, New York's REV and Nevada's Net Metering Debate Captivated the Power Sector this Year:

CLean Power Plan. Reforming the Energy Vision. Exelon and Pepco.

Those are just some of the buzzwords circulating through the news cycle this year as the power sector kept its eyes pinned on federal climate regulations for utilities, an ambitious proceeding to upend their business model, and a monster merger in the nation’s capital.

In recognition of the eventful year, Utility Dive offers its inaugural Dive Awards. A few months ago, we sent you a survey asking for nominees in 10 categories. Utility Dive then narrowed the list with the help of a panel of industry experts, with our editors making the final choices.  Here are your winners:

Company of the year:

• Winner: Berkshire Hathaway Energy
• Other nominees: Duke Energy; Rocky Mountain Institute’s Business Center; Tesla Motors; NextEra Energy.

CEO of the year

• Winner: Chris Cane, CEO of Exelon
• Other nominees: Commonwealth Edison CEO Anne Pramaggiore; Southern Co. CEO Tom Fanning; PG&E CEO Tony Earley; Southern California Edison CEO Pedro Pizzarro

Disruptive idea of the year

• Winner: Reforming the Energy Vision
• Other nominees: Aggregated DERs; Net metering successor tariffs; Residential demand charges; Corporate renewable PPAs

Transformation of the year

• Winner: Renewable production/investment tax credits
• Other nominees: Exelon-Pepco merger; NextEra-Oncor deal; Clean Power litigation; Xcel Energy

Obsession of the year

• Winner: Clean Power Plan
• Other nominees: Solar+Storage; Solar rate design; Consumer choice; Nuclear power subsidies

Feud of the year

• Winner: Nevada’s solar controversy
• Other nominees: Arizona solar debates; Exelon-Pepco merger; NextEra-HECO merger; Republicans vs. EPA

Deal of the year

• Winner: Exelon-Pepco
• Other nominees: Tesla-SolarCity; NextEra-HECO; Southern-PowerSource; Duke-Piedmont Gas

Policymaker of the year

• Winner: Audrey Zibelman, New York State Public Service Commission chair
• Other nominees: Doug Little, Chair of Arizona Corporation Commission; David Noble, Public Utilities Commission of Nevada; Joanne Doddy Fort, DC Public Service Commission; Catherine Sandoval, California Public Utilities Commission

Biggest miss of the year

• Winner: SunEdison bankruptcy
• Other nominees: Hunt-Oncor deal; NextEra-HECO merger; PREPA debt; Maine net metering veto

Most ambitious project of the year

• Winner: Diablo Canyon nuclear plant shutdown
• Other nominees: NY’s REV; Hawaii co-op KICU solar+storage project; Green Mountain Power’s Tesla Partnership; SolarCity software for DERM