Opportunities and risks for energy suppliers: Market design, government regulation, reliability planning, credit crunch, and peer competition

Declining reserve margins, newly introduced forward capacity markets, federal and state regulations, evolving environmental policies - especially on CO₂ emission, establishment of the electric reliability organization, the recent credit market crisis, and fierce peer competition all present both opportunities and risks for energy suppliers. Not meant to be a complete list, highlighted and explained in this paper are some key factors for energy suppliers to consider. IEEE power system planning and implementation committee and its energy supply working group plan to provide a forum for the power industry and invite all interested parties to further study these opportunities and risks and share their views of the world. Through open discussion, maybe we can together improve the markets and policies, understand and mitigate the risks, and take on some calculated opportunities.