EnergyOnline
Services

RSS FEED

EnergyOnline.com rss

News

ERCOT Announces Organizational Changes to Promote Grid Reliability, Rapid Demand Growth, and Innovation

LCG, December 12, 2025--Today, the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, Inc. (ERCOT) announced strategic organizational changes designed to accelerate innovation, strengthen grid reliability, and support the unprecedented growth in the demand for electricity across Texas. To meet these objectives, ERCOT created two new organizations: Interconnection and Grid Analysis, and Enterprise Data and Artificial Intelligence (AI). The two organizations will formally launch in January 2026.

Read more

NextEra Energy Resources and Basin Electric Power Cooperative Announce MOU to Develop 1,450-MW Natural Gas-fired Power Plant in North Dakota

LCG, December 8, 2025--Basin Electric Power Cooperative (Basin Electric) and NextEra Energy Resources, LLC (NextEra) today announced that they have signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) to explore the joint development of the River Run Energy Center, a new combined-cycle natural gas-fueled generation facility in Basin Electric's North Dakota service territory. The proposed facility will have a planned capacity of approximately 1,450 MW.

Read more

Industry News

Ohio Regulators: We're Not California

LCG, Jan. 22, 2001With Ohioans beginning to ponder selection of an electricity supplier other than their good old local utility, many are casting nervous glances westward, where deregulation of the California electric utility industry is being blamed for soaring bills and rolling outages.

Not to worry, says the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio, as it presents a long list of differences between the Buckeye State and the Golden State when it comes to electricity.

  • Ohio designed its wholesale electricity market better. According to PUCO, California requires utilities to buy electricity on the spot market through a power exchange, where prices are set hourly. Not so in Ohio, where utilities can enter into long-term contracts for power to serve their native loads. Ohio doesn't even have a power exchange.

  • Ohio has approved building new power plants and continues to approve development of additional generating sources. California, where a spotted owl is considered more important than the livelihoods of thousands of lumberjacks, approved no new power plants for about ten years. California's problem is essentially one of demand outstripping supply, yet it still takes about three years to get approval for a new power plant.

  • Growth in states from which California has customarily imported power has shut off that source of electricity. Indiana, and other states bordering Ohio, are also approving new power plant development, and that will increase the amount of electricity available throughout the Midwest.

  • California's grid is north-south oriented, limiting its ability to import power from states to the east, even if it were available. Ohio and other Midwest states are interconnected with greater flexibility.

  • It's just as hard to build new transmission lines in California as it is to build new power plants.

But it all comes down to supply and demand, and PUCO notes that Ohio has added 1,230 megawatts of new generation since 1998, nearly double the 676 megawatts added by California since 1996. Looked at a different way, Ohio has added about 110 watts of generation for each of its citizens in the past three years. California has added about 20 watts per person.

Copyright © 2025 LCG Consulting. All rights reserved. Terms and Copyright
UPLAN-NPM
The Locational Marginal Price Model (LMP) Network Power Model
Uniform Storage Model
A Battery Simulation Model
UPLAN-ACE
Day Ahead and Real Time Market Simulation
UPLAN-G
The Gas Procurement and Competitive Analysis System
PLATO
Database of Plants, Loads, Assets, Transmission...
CAISO CRR Auctions
Monthly Price and Congestion Forecasting Service