The Virtual Utility: Accounting, Technology & Competitive Aspects of the Emerging Industry: 26 (Topics in Regulatory Economics and Policy, 26) - Softcover

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1461378273 ISBN 13: 9781461378273

Publisher: Springer, 2012

Synopsis

In the winter of 1996, after 4 years of planning and research, the Symposium on the Virtual Utility was held in Saratoga Springs, New York. It was sponsored by Niag­ ara Mohawk Power Corporation, Co-sponsored by CSC Index and the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority and hosted by Rensselaer Poly­ technic Institute, Troy, NY. The symposium sought to identify new areas of inquiry by presenting cutting-edge academic and practitioner research intended to further our understanding of the strategic, technologically-driven issues confronting the elec­ tricity production and distribution process. The program sought to offer new in­ sights into rapid changes in the utility industry, in part, by examining analogues from manufacturing and telecommunications. In addition to identifying new research areas, the symposium yielded a number of important findings and conclusions. This volume contains the presented papers of the meeting, the discussant reports and two special papers prepared by the meet­ ing rapporteurs who performed superbly in analyzing, synthesizing, explaining and generally bringing a cohesive perspective to the interesting yet complex set of ideas presented at this unique meeting. We would like to acknowledge the people and organizations that contributed to this effort. We thank Niagara Mohawk Power Corporation and Albert Budney, its President & Chief Operating Officer for sponsoring this project, and Andrew Vesey, Vice President, I whose vision, support and championing made this project possible.

About this title

Product Description

The virtual utility (VU) is a flexible collaboration of independent, market-driven entities that provide efficient energy service demanded by consumers without necessarily owning the corresponding assets. The VU becomes a metaphor for lean, flexible electricity production/delivery and flexible, customer-oriented energy service provision. Experience in manufacturing suggests that traditional engineering and accounting-based approaches to valuing radical innovations such as the VU are limited in that they fail to consider the full spectrum of benefits that new technologies may yield when fully exploited in a new production process. The purpose of this book is to identify new areas of research by presenting new academic and practitioner research intended to further our understanding of the strategic, technologically-driven issues confronting the electricity production/distribution process.

Edition details

• Publisher: Springer
• Publication date: 2012
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1461378273
• ISBN 13: 9781461378273
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 431
• Editor: Awerbuch Shimon, Preston Alistair