Courses on Utility Industry Topics
History, Structure and Regulation of the Electric Utility Industry – Targeted at personnel new to regulation and the electric utility industry. Provides and overview of state and federal regulation of the electric utility industry.
Electric Systems and Technology – Describes the physical components of electric utility systems and how the existing technologies work. Defines basic terms that are commonly used in the industry.
Fundamentals of Rate of Return and Rate Base Regulation – Provides an overview of cost of service and rate base regulation for new regulatory personnel.
Economics of Power Production and Delivery – Describes what the generation, transmission and distribution components of electric utility systems cost and discusses how these costs are turned into rates. Explains techniques for calculating the fixed and variable cost of electric generating projects. Compares the fixed and variable costs of production using coal plants, simple cycle combustion turbines and combined cycle natural gas plants. Examines the cost of various electric generating technologies. Explains how generation alternatives are evaluated from an economic point of view.
Competitive Market Fundamentals – Explains how competitive markets for electric energy function. Explores the implications for retail choice. Describes experiences with competitive markets in other states.
Electric Wholesale Pricing – Describes the different participants in wholesale markets, defines basic terms and provides an overview of how wholesale markets function. Explores actual experiences with wholesale pricing and identifies the sources of price variability. Provides an overview of price risk management tools and how they can be applied.
Electric Retail Pricing – Explores cost-based determination of retail electric prices. Describes how cost of service studies are developed and how the output is used in determining rates. Discusses the various components of retail electric rates, such as energy charges, demand charges, power factor adjustments, fuel clause adjustments, minimum bills, customer charges, and facilities charges. Examines various rate design options such as flat prices, time of use rates, seasonal rates, optional high load factor demand rates and real time pricing.
