Utility planning perspectives: a review

Today´s mixed market (simultaneously regulated and competitive) for electric services has resulted in a proliferation of planning paradigms and optimization criteria, all of which attempt to provide the best planning approach. The author describes these planning approaches, the market environments to which they best apply, and the degree to which they apply to the current electric utility marketplace. He concludes that the newer approaches more directly address the real issues of today´s electric marketplace, but still need to develop a commensurate level of accuracy and acceptance in the methods and data upon which they rely. Nevertheless, the key to utility planning lies in solving the right problem (the appropriate business environment), not in applying ready solutions to any problem that comes along