مدل کسب و کار صنعت برق برای قرن بیست و یکم

Successful development and implementation of the new business model will be internally driven. Little or no enabling assistance is likely to be forthcoming from external agents, including the federal government, particularly with comprehensive energy legislation likely to be off the table for 2004.

Electric utility credit quality continues to decline, according to a recent Standard and Poor’s report. The average credit quality of utilities is mid-BBB, and while downgrades have slowed in 2003, a trend that began in earnest in the late 1990s continues.1 At the same time reliability is deteriorating and electricity prices are soaring. The deregulated sector is fairing worse. A recent article in The Electricity Journal by S&P Director of Utilities Peter Rigby all but writes off the merchant power plant sector.2 Over $65 billion of debt is coming due for this sector between now and 2010, with another $60 billion owed beyond. Merchant power companies have junk bond status, assets of little value, no likelihood of profitability, thus no way to pay off their creditors. In short, the electric power industry is in need of a new business model. This deterioration in industry credit worthiness coincides with resurgent economic and electric demand growth that may soon increase the electric grid’s economic and operating vulnerabilities.

Successful development and implementation of this business model will be internally driven. Little or no enabling assistance is likely to be forthcoming from external agents, including the federal government. Comprehensive energy legislation appears to be off the table for 2004, and while it contained several provisions that would be helpful to the power industry, failure to enact should not retard evolution of the business model just articulated. The model may also have application outside the U.S. Europe, for example, has recently experienced electric reliability problems. Thus, like the U.S., Europe is struggling to find a business model that will provide the capital needed to relieve reliability problems in Western Europe and provide the clean energy needed to sustain economic growth in central and eastern Europe. There is urgency to move forward. The U.S. appears to be at the onset of a sustained economic recovery, resulting in higher electricity requirements. Sustained high natural gas prices also mean that electricity is bound to make inroads into natural gas energy markets, further boosting demand. With reserve margins tightening and construction of new natural gas plants all but off the table, action to implement this business model is past due. Finally, there are no magic technical solutions to be sought that eliminate the hard work of building and successfully operating large capital projects. Solutions must instead come from the power generators, utilities, and regulators that have direct responsibility for ensuring economic and reliable delivery of electricity. Each has a significant role in the evolution and implementation of the business model outlined here. But it requires a clear-headed acknowledgement of what decisions are in the best interests of electricity customers and investors, that significant economic benefits exist, and that a sharing of the benefits can result in a viable electric industry business model.