Following the unprecedented power blackout by PG&E during the week of Oct. 7 that affected almost 800,000 homes and businesses, up to a total of 2 million people in the state, the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC)...

Technology company Itron, Inc., Liberty Lake, Wash., released Disaster Preparedness: Itron Resourcefulness Insight Report that details the results of a survey of 300 utility executives and 500 consumer utility ratepayers. The...

On the heels of a recent announcement by the North American Electric Reliability Corporate, providing details of a cyber event in March that adversely impacted a utility in the western United States, Proofpoint, a security...

Last week, Duke Energy , Charlotte, N.C., announced that it plans to achieve net-zero carbon emissions by 2050, which is an updated climate strategy for the utility. The company is also accelerating its near-term goal by...

While regulators and those in the utility industry have been talking for over a decade, the first actual hacking of a utility by an outsider occurred on March 5, 2019 , and was officially reported by the North American...

Events in California can unfold in the most unexpected fashion. Two years ago , the state suffered billions of dollars in damage and loss of life from multiple raging wildfires. Crumbling under the weight of liabilities from...

The Smart Electric Power Alliance (SEPA) released its "2019 Utility Energy Storage Market Snapshot" report this month. SEPA is an educational nonprofit that works to facilitate the electric power industry's transition to a...

As a result of growing concern over the impacts of more frequent and more powerful storms battering the nation's electric grid infrastructure, as well as the increasing frequency and threat of manmade threats to cripple the...

Currently, over 2,000 of the nation's electric utilities are publicly owned, meaning they are owned and operated by municipalities. There are almost 900 electric cooperatives (co-ops), and less than 200 investor-owned...

Earlier this month, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) issued a request for information related to the resilience of the electric grid against severe weather events. In the request, the DOE notes concern among government...

Summer heat waves could lead to major power outages in several major metropolitan areas, including New York City, Chicago and Washington, D.C. Utility officials in the cities told USA Today they were preparing for the extreme...

Utilities have only a few options available to them when it comes to customers who don’t pay their bills. In Arizona, the option of cutting off service has been taken off the table for now. On June 20, Commissioners for the...

Utilities have taken on climate change in a number of different ways. In Sacramento, Calif., the local utility has gone all electric. Sacramento Municipal Utility District’s (SMUD) All-Electric Smart Home project is part of...

Utilities are used to facing opposition from environmental and consumer groups when they present a new rate-case proposal to their state regulators. However, Dominion Energy in Virginia has been challenged from an unexpected...

Technological innovation can be a blessing and a curse. For example, the increased penetration of renewable energy has created new challenges for grid operators. At the same time, big data can provide insight to help address...

Legislatures in two states—Hawaii, and now Nevada—have determined, if the states impose mandates for utilities to increase their use of renewable energy sources, the states should also allow utilities to implement alternative...

According to the 2019 Summer Reliability Assessment by the North American Electric Reliability Corp. (NERC), projected electric grid resources are at or above the levels needed to satisfy summer peak demand until anticipated...

Changes in California’s utility regulations are coming about because of last year’s devastating wildfires. Some regulations, including enhancements to utilities’ mitigation plans, are expected, and some, such as...

Some big-name utilities, including PG&E, Dominion Energy and DTE Energy and other Fortune 500 companies, plan to lobby for some type of “economy-wide” price on carbon, perhaps deciding to get involved with policy-making of...

The U.S. utility industry may have just experienced its first malicious “cyber event”—or at least the first such event to be reported. In March, an anonymous utility in the Western region of the country filed an “ Electric...