Take-aways from the 11th Annual Electric Power Conference 2009

I attended the 11th annual Electric Power Conference in Chicago recently. Days of meetings and seminars left me with the following takeaways...

Renewable portfolio--
CEO's of utilities feel the renewable portfolio standards are okay but more thought needs to be given to the regional nuances before mandating specific percentages of wind solar and biomass.

Transmission lines --
Transmission lines need to be added to take advantage of renewable sources in the country. For example, to get all the wind power from the Midwest, you need to get it from that point to more populated areas that need it.

Nuclear --
There needs to be more government support for nuclear which is a critical base load generation source.

Cap and Trade--
The concern about cap and trade is that this could be opened up to financial instruments that may not be transparent.