Competition in the electric service industry is highlighting the importance of a number of issues affecting the nature and quality of customer service. The quality of service(s) provided to electricity customers may be enhanced by competition, if doing so offers service suppliers a competitive advantage. On the other hand, service quality offered to some consumers could decline if utilities foc...

The challenge of electricity distribution’s upgrade to incorporate new technologies is big, and electric utilities are mandated to work diligently on this agenda, thus making investments to ensure that current networks maintain their electricity supply commitments secure and reliable in face of disruptions and adverse environmental conditions from a variety of sources. The paper presents a new ...

Economic needs and the ongoing liberalization of European electricity markets stimulate the interest of power utilities in developing models and optimization techniques for the generation and trading of electric power under uncertainty. Utilities participating in deregulated markets observe increasing uncertainty in load (i.e., demand for electric power) and prices for fuel and electricity on s...

One of the major concerns of electric utilities in installing geothermal power plants is not only the longevity of the steam supply, but also the potential for changes in thermodynamic properties of the resource that might reduce the conversion efficiency of the design plant equipment. Production was initiated at Los Azufres geothermal field with wellhead generators not only to obtain electric ...

The electric utility industry is moving towards a deregulated, competitive environment where utilities must have accurate information about system performance to ensure that maintenance money are spent wisely and that customer expectation are met. To measure system performance, the electric utility industry has developed several performance measure of reliability. These reliability indices incl...

Relatively little is known about the practice of settlement rather than litigation in US utility regulation, or about the activities of consumer advocates. This paper presents evidence from Florida. During 1976-2002, over 30 per cent of earnings reviews were settled by stipulations involving the Office of Public Counsel but only 5 per cent of other cases. Over three quarters of the rate reducti...

A growing body of research has centered on the issue of the relationship between financial and environmental performance. The lack of consensus in this literature can be attributed to several factors. The cost of complying with environmental regulation can be significant and detrimental to shareholder wealth maximization. Conversely, a firm that can effectively control pollution might also be a...

Using data from electric utilities, this study shows that spanding on w e ^ regulations has a positive productivity impact but that spmdiag oa less w«ll-dw%ned regulations has a nagative aftMrt. Bettnr-daaigned ragulalfains are flsxihle and grant firms latitude on how to oieet goals, allow them time to d ^ l o y new means to meet goals, and set amhitious goals that stretch them beyond current p...

As Distribution Systems are growing large and being stretched too far, electric utilities and end users of electric power are becoming increasingly concerned about meeting the growing electric demand. Hence efforts have been made by electric utilities to reduce the losses in the distribution system. In this dissertation work, Network Reconfiguration and Optimal Distributed Generation placement ...