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Byline: Gail Kachadourian Howe It's getting easier for adventurers to take their electric vehicles to camp or explore the roads less traveled, and the uptick in charging options in rural [...]

Kindly light Villagers enjoy sunlight after dark FLY by night over Uttar Pradesh in northern India, the country's most populous state, and its cities appear as dazzling islands. In between, [...]

The 129 federally owned plants that make up the five PMAs generate about 6 percent of the electricity sold in the United States.(1) By law, the PMAs sell wholesale power [...]

Using the Illinois electric systems as an example, the economic challenges of rural electric cooperatives are examined. Rate-making and rate design are discussed. The reasons for rate increases, such as the escalating distribution costs, are reviewed. The revenue effect of higher rates is analyzed, with an emphasis on how rural electrics can minimize the effects of 'rate shock' on usage. The use of promotional rates as a management option is described, focusing on the short-term benefits for a cooperative strategy when faced with surplus capacity. Problems faced by cooperative management are addressed: anticipating revenue losses from higher rates; reducing rate-caused usage repression through better rate design; the need for short-run inducement of sales through promotional pricing; and the issue of energy conservation investment subsidization.

Lee County Electric Cooperative in Florida has taken a leadership role to build a sound community economic base by creating jobs, keeping the southwest Florida economy diversified, and expanding the local community tax base. The Business Development Corporation's three goals are: create superior jobs, take the economy beyond tourism and construction, and relieve the homeowner's tax burden. Among the eleven factors key to economic development are: Lee County development as a business and financial area, improved education options, positive cultural surroundings, and cost-effective, quality health care. The ultimate goal is the expansion of community development programs to meet regional needs.

Cooperations are more than transactions, as there are different economic reasons for cooperation, and these differences have implications for management. The three types of cooperatives among electric utility companies described are: seasonal diversity exchanges, economy energy exchanges, and reactive power flows. Each type has specific organizational problems, but all contribute to the management process of generation and transmission cooperatives, with management's understanding of these cooperative inducements being essential to managing a partnership form of organization.

'Many thousands of enterprising rural businesses could take advantage of the opportunities presented by deregulation of the energy market,' according to Alastair Hunter of the Scottish Agricultural College's Environmental Division, [...]