Home  »  IssueAlert

Free analysis of the most critical issues in the energy industry from UtiliPoint International Inc.

Happy New Year–How Long Can the Natural Gas Party Continue?‏

10 January 2013

NOTE: Please read to the end and submit your forecast of July 2013 Henry Hub trading prices to rbell@utilipoint.com. I hope everyone had an enjoyable holiday and I extend best wishes for a wonderful and exciting year ahead.  Every year, my family takes a picture that we turn into our annual holiday card.  The photo is a [...]

MORE »

$2.5 Billion Utility CIS Replacement Market

28 November 2012

For more than a decade, UtiliPoint has surveyed the North American utility industry on customer service trends, investments and outsourcing. Over 200 utilities participated in this year’s survey and one key conclusion is utilities are struggling with the business case for replacing their customer information system (CIS). The survey responses indicate that CISs will be [...]

MORE »

Smart Meters Not Shaping Up To Be a Strong Driver of CIS Decisions

30 October 2012

Over the past several years, advanced meter deployments were forecasted to impact the customer information system (CIS) replacement rate. For the past 12 years, UtiliPoint has conducted extensive surveys of utility customer service issue and in particular, customer information systems replacements. As part of this year’s survey involving over 200 respondents we find that the [...]

MORE »

Nuclear Enrichment Facility to be Constructed in Wilmington, N.C.

26 September 2012

GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy, a joint venture between General Electric Co. and Japan’s Hitachi Ltd, announced it received a license from the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) to build a nuclear enrichment facility on the 1,600-acre site of the company’s global headquarters in Wilmington, N.C.   The project is an attempt to commercialize an Australian invention [...]

MORE »

What Does it Take to Light and Cool a Political Convention?

13 September 2012

The past two weeks, the United States experienced a quadrennial phenomenon—national conventions of the two major political parties. I thought it might be interesting to take a broad look at the conventions’ energy usage. I’ll try to stay away from “hot air” quips—not really. Both conventions were held in Sunbelt states (Florida and North Carolina), [...]

MORE »

UtiliPoint’s 10th CIS Survey Trends for Smartphones

16 August 2012

The past few years, the utility customer engagement model has changed significantly. This is due to several factors, including smart grid developments, social media and increasing use of mobile communications methods such as SMS text messaging and smartphone apps. Smartphone adoption increased by over 500 million units worldwide this past year (according to several sources). [...]

MORE »

Proctor & Gamble Teams Up with EPA to Further its Sustainability Goals

1 August 2012

Utility and energy companies working to improve their sustainability metrics can look to Proctor & Gamble Company (NYSE:PG) for ideas on how to measure and improve performance in their supply chain activity. Last week, Proctor & Gamble announced it had signed an agreement with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) National Risk Management Research Laboratory [...]

MORE »

Information Security: A Tiered Approach to Protection

20 June 2012

Being aware and acknowledging that a data security threat is possible is the first step to securing your information technology assets. In my experience working on data protection issues with companies from many industries, I have seen that failure to protect electronic corporate assets can lead to serious, business-compromising events, sometimes with disastrous consequences. Utilities [...]

MORE »

Of Typewriters, Monkeys and Analytics With My Significant Apologies to the Bard of Avon

13 June 2012

“What a piece of work is a man, how noble in reason, how infinite in faculties, in form and moving how express and admirable, in action how like an angel, in apprehension how like a god!” Hamlet, Act II, Scene II. I believe, among many other things, Hamlet was expressing the Earth was merely a [...]

MORE »

The Future of CTRM Technology?

6 June 2012

Last week we held our 2012 CommodityPoint E/CTRM Technical Conference in London, the first of two such events, with the second to be held in Houston on July 11th and 12th. The goal of these events is to: Provide users of E/CTRM technologies a forum to share ideas, experiences, and develop a common vision of where [...]

MORE »

← Previous Entries