Recent outages show the importance of proper transmission system design. As the grid becomes more complex, meeting NERC reliability standards and proper assessment of power grid reliability will require closer coordination between system planners and protection engineers.

The United States is the superpower of cyber warfare, but we aren’t alone in possessing these capabilities. Sophisticated attacks raise new concerns about utility vulnerabilities -- SCADA systems in particular.

A new survey of energy industry experts reveals a surprising consensus on the size of the energy efficiency resource. Overall, energy efficiency is expected to lower electricity consumption by 5 to 15 percent, and natural gas consumption by 5 to 10 percent. These results debunk the notion that conservation is a fad. On the contrary, they herald a new beginning for energy efficiency.

The California Public Utility Commission’s recent proposed rule aims to protect customer privacy while also facilitating third-party access to smart meter data for energy management, demand response and other customer service applications. But does it go far enough?