With this issue, I’m very pleased to welcome a new member to our industry report family. Dan Gabaldon from Booz Allen Hamilton teamed up with me to write “Capital Expenditures in the Electricity Sector for 2007.”
We’ve covered the utility financial rankings with The C Three Group and the operating performance rankings for power plants with Energy Ventures Analysis for many years and with the addition of this report, a gap in our industry report library is filled. Visualize it this way: the power plants make electricity, the utilities make money, money is spent on the electric system. I think we’ve got you covered from soup to nuts.
In the capex report, Dan characterized 2007 as a year of uncertainty. “It’s as if the background music in a Hitchcock movie is getting louder and louder from 2004 to the present,” he said. 2007 was characterized by the high level of renewables coming into the generation mix, the many power plant cancellations and “just sheer cost increases.” The American Wind Energy Association’s announcement that U.S. wind power generating capacity expanded by 45 percent in 2007, shattering all previous records, didn’t come as any surprise to him.
Dan’s insightful analysis of investments made in the industry in 2007 begins on page 14. Don’t miss his list of five things to watch for in 2008.
Nancy Spring,
managing editor
CORRECTION:
In “Table 4: Top 20 Coal Generators Ranked by Capacity Factor (2006),” p.24 of the Operating Performance Rankings (Nov. Dec. 2007 EL&P) the location of the No. 3 ranked plant, Healy, was incorrect. Healy is located in Alaska.