The hottest Utilities Substack posts right now

PJM’s simulation-driven capacity market and optimistic datacenter load forecasts caused capacity auction prices to soar, shifting roughly $16 billion in costs onto customers and adding about $25–$30 a month to household bills.
ERCOT’s energy-only model with real-time scarcity pricing and skeptical planning absorbed similar datacenter growth without a 9x price spike, and its operational reforms helped the grid hold up during Winter Storm Fern.
The crisis highlights that market design and regulatory speed—not AI datacenters alone—drive price shocks; fixing forecasting methods, capacity incentives, and treating datacenters as flexible grid resources is needed to avoid political fallout and misallocated costs.

Ohio's shale gas boom has given the state abundant, low-cost natural gas and cheap electricity, helping revive its industrial prospects.
About 60% of Ohio's power comes from natural gas while coal and nuclear supply most of the rest and wind and solar contribute under 8%, with prices shaped by the PJM regional grid.
State leaders put in place a regulatory framework that encourages large data center construction while protecting consumers, making Ohio a likely model for other energy-rich states.

Nuclear plants are far more heavily staffed than operational needs justify, and modern automation plus examples from other countries show they could run safely with only a few dozen workers instead of hundreds or thousands.
Major staffing increases came from post‑accident regulation and post‑9/11 security measures, creating lots of overlapping administrative and security roles that add little real safety.
Inflated manning and security theatre drive up nuclear costs and feed public fear; treating plant security as a federal responsibility and cutting to normal industrial security levels would lower costs and make nuclear more competitive.

Write-Hand Man brought Sidekick-style pop-up utilities to CP/M, letting users call up a notepad, phonebook, calendar, calculator, file viewer and a communications tool without leaving their main program.
It used memory-saving and swap-to-disk tricks so it could run in 64K CP/M systems, but that made it slow on floppy drives and could conflict with some modem programs unless you had a RAM disk or hard drive.
Poor Person Software was an obscure small company that sold the utility at a modest price and had its product enhanced by Technical Micro Systems to add H/Z19 graphics and extra features.

Electricity transitioned from a rare luxury to a critical aspect of modern life in a short period of time.
The development of high-voltage transmission lines allowed for long-distance power transmission and the creation of interconnected power systems.
The electric power industry grew by embracing scale, cooperation, and regulation to meet increasing demand and ensure reliability.

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In the late 1960s, nuclear power was seen as a cheaper way to generate electricity compared to coal, thanks to its efficiency and lower need for pollution controls.
After 1968, fixed-price contracts for nuclear plants disappeared due to regulatory changes, leading to rising costs that made nuclear less competitive with coal.
A stable regulatory system is essential for the success of nuclear power, as uncertainty can lead to higher costs that are passed on to consumers.

The nuclear industry is off to a decent start this year because of today’s news.
Two favored nuclear names are showing good early performance after the news.
The piece is behind a paywall but offers a free post and a subscription option.

The default presumption should be to quarantine the monopoly in regulated utilities owning EV charging assets to prevent anti-competitive practices.
Regulated utilities entering competitive EV charging markets may have unfair advantages by leveraging their regulated status.
Allowing regulated utilities to own EV charging assets could stifle innovation and competition in the market compared to independent firms.

Utilities lobbying for special favors can be seen as tactics to pressure governments for more favorable terms.
Increased costs in the wind industry are real and partly a result of business decisions not to hedge against risks.
Government regulations like the CfD are effective tools for encouraging low-cost capital investment in projects and should not be changed based on short-term pressures.

Competition is important for businesses because it helps them become more efficient and often leads to lower prices for customers. By bringing in new companies, industries can see positive changes and improvements.
Traditionally, utility companies lacked innovation and often prioritized dividends over customer service. This has led to underinvestment in infrastructure, resulting in higher costs for consumers.
Private equity and institutional investors have recently started buying utility companies, leading to better efficiency and management. These newcomers are able to sell electricity at higher prices by managing their output more flexibly, benefiting both investors and consumers.

Utilities in the past were elite products catered to the wealthy, and mass electrification changed that.
Today's grid struggles with fragility due to issues like tree maintenance cutbacks and dependence on outdated power plants.
Creating smaller, independent microgrids with diverse energy sources could increase grid resiliency and reduce peak demand issues.