The present context of the electric industry, characterized by competitive markets, privatization, and regulatory of technical requirements forces the power utilities to optimize their asset management practices and develop the requisite decision plans techno-economically. Practically approaching, this paper devises a new support tool based on a multiattribute decision making (MADM) framework i...

Concerns about global climate change have substantially increased the likelihood that future policy will seek to minimize carbon dioxide emissions. As such, even today, electric utilities are making resource planning and investment decisions that consider the possible implications of these future carbon regulations. In this article, we examine the manner in which utilities assess the financial ...

The U.S. electric utility industry is facing a number of challenges today. In response, utilities are investing in smart grid technologies to mitigate them. Yet, smart grid adoption presents significant knowledge barriers to utilities. This study aims to advance the understanding of IT knowledge challenges in smart grid adoption by focusing on three research questions: 1) what knowledge require...

The continued development of strategic planning processes in electric utilities is of utmost importance, given their increasingly complex, dynamic markets. Development will be blocked unless electric utilities begin developing and integrating other organization systems within their strategic planning processes to create "strategic support ·systems". This article describes three dimensions for a...

Introduction During the pioneering days of the electric utility industry, it was believed that utilities were natural monopolies, meaning that one utility could service a geographic area more cheaply than any combination of smaller utilities. More recently, the economic viability of transferring or wheeling electricity over long distances, the development of small-scale generators and efficient...

This paper uses the implications of Samuelson's spatial equilibrium model to analyze transportation rates for steam coal delivered to electric utilities in the United States. The analysis indicates that transportation rates declined in every year but two since railroads were substantially deregulated in 1980. While some utilities may have experienced some rate increases, coal-®red electric util...