martes, enero 26, 2010

La Gran Trinitaria de Ilusiones en el Día de Duarte: la Macrored, la Energía Barata y la Constitución

Un líder realista siempre responde a los hechos, porque realismo significa no hacerse ilusiones


Peter Koestenbaum



Estimada o estimado líder,

En la celebración del natalicio del patriota Juan Pablo Duarte, muy cortésmente tengo el placer de someter a su consideración las siguientes informaciones claves con el propósito de destacar tres grandes ilusiones:

Mientras seguimos ilusionándonos con la gran red eléctrica interconectada – la macro red - y sus economías de escala, hemos pasado por alto, que para bien o para mal, los vestigios de la tecnologías disruptivas de la micro red se encuentran en nuestras narices, con plantas e inversores que como todas las tecnologías disruptivas son ineficientes al inicio. La cruda realidad es que a principios de este mes, en la Feria de Electrónica de Consumo (CES, siglas en Inglés), celebrada en Las Vegas, Nevada, empresas de alto nivel presentaron al menos 5 dispositivos, tecnologías disruptivas, para la administración de la energía en el hogar (HEM, siglas en Inglés). Al respecto, elaboré el artículo Huge States’ Costs as Utilities are Unable to Cross the Home Energy Management Chasm, que da cuenta de la increíble destrucción de valor que los Estados están impulsando por un error de reestructuración del sector eléctrico. No cabe duda que dicho error está repetido aquí también. Esa ilusión se basa en una ilusión subyacente.

Amparado en la cita del filósofo de los negocios Peter Koestenbaum, elaboré el artículo Eliminemos lo Más Pronto Posible la Ilusión a la Energía Barata. Espero que dicho artículo se convierta en lectura obligada de todos los líderes del país. Como se explica en el artículo, esa ilusión es de hecho un cuasi derecho constitucional que necesitamos eliminar de una vez por todas para poder progresar en el sector eléctrico.

Debajo de las declaraciones del Presidente del Senado, Reinaldo Pared Pérez defiende nueva Constitución; asegura Carta Magna no tiene precedentes, que aparecen en El Día, coloqué el siguiente comentario para destacar la gran ilusión que se ha producido con la constitución:

Respeto mucho lo que el presidente del Senado de la República expresa para defender la nueva constitución. No obstante, por experiencia propia me parece que la mayor influencia proviene de lo que en Estados Unidos llaman el “groupthink” (pensamiento de grupo), lo que muy bien puede asociarse a que "la Constitución estuvo rodeada de toda legalidad y respeto a los procedimientos." Si el mundo del futuro fuese una continuidad del pasado, el "groupthink" sería altamente valioso.

Pero sucede que es altamente probable que el nuevo mundo no sea una continuación del mundo que hemos venido esperando en las últimas décadas y que definitivamente no ha resultado satisfactorio a consecuencia del estilo prevaleciente de gestión que dio lugar a dicha constitución. En consecuencia, como servidor-líder del Grupo Millennium Hispaniola reitero la nota Pregunta al Liderazgo ¿Se Opondrá la Nueva Constitución al Desarrollo del País?

Espero que este aporte en el día de Duarte sea la llama que inspire a que esa serie de ilusiones pasen a ser historia y nos concentremos en aprovechar las oportunidades que nos ofrece la dura realidad para desarrollar el país.

Muy atentamente,

José Antonio Vanderhorst-Silverio, Ph.D.
Consultor Sistémico: Electricidad
Servidor-Líder del GMH
Creador del Modelo EWPC


Eliminemos lo Más Pronto Posible la Ilusión a la Energía Barata

Un líder realista siempre responde a los hechos, porque realismo significa no hacerse ilusiones.

Peter Koestenbaum




Eliminemos lo Más Pronto Posible la Ilusión a la Energía Barata

Este mensaje es en seguimiento a la valiosa conferencia “Política Energética en la República Dominicana,” organizada por el Congreso Nacional y el Instituto de las Américas, el 19 de enero del 2010. Sobre la misma coloqué un avance con un email enviado con la nota Tres Segmentos de Video sobre Pacto de Política de Electricidad.

En la parte final de dicha conferencia se desarrolló una importante sesión sobre Conservación de Energía. En la misma, el presidente de la Comisión de Energía de la Cámara de diputados, Pelegrín Castillo, según aparece en El Día Digital, dijo “que para lograr un sector eléctrico eficiente, es necesario fortalecer la institucionalidad y así poder enfrentar con éxito los retos que se avecinan.”

Al proponer una Ley de Eficiencia Energética y Ahorro de Recursos, Pelegrín Castillo “Indicó que… tiene como objetivos la creación de un marco de aprovechamiento de actividades, normas y tecnologías orientadas a conseguir la mayor eficiencia posible en el uso de la energía y establecer un sistema nacional de ahorro de los recursos naturales.”

Cabe notar que el sector tendrá tres grandes leyes que afectan directamente a la industria eléctrica. Resultó evidente de una conversación en el patio del Hotel Santo Domingo, durante un receso, de que los aspectos relativos a la eficiencia energética en el lado de la demanda fueron excluidos de la Ley de Incentivo a las Energias Renovables y Regimenes Especiales 57-07, como también lo habían sido de la Ley General de Electricidad. Como se puede ver más adelante, estas tres grandes leyes generan oportunidades de una significativa creación de riqueza con una mayor integración impulsada por medio de una reestructuración del sector eléctrico.

A seguidas del diputado Castillo, Ramón Flores agregó al tema institucional popularizado recientemente de la despolitización del sector eléctrico, el gran daño al temor populista a ajustar los precios, que incide directamente en la conservación de energía. Por eso necesitamos considerar seriamente la nota de hace un año Plan de Nación sin la Quimera de la Electricidad Barata.

En la propuesta para aumentar la eficiencia, y crear un verdadero sistema (el valor del sistema es superior a la suma del valor de las partes) en el sector eléctrico, es necesario y urgente reestructurar el sector eléctrico con base al modelo emergente de la Electricidad Sin Control de Precios. Ese sistema será el resultado de integrar sinérgicamente los recursos del transporte y de la oferta centralizada, con los del lado de la demanda, entre los que se encuentran la eficiencia y el uso racional de la energía eléctrica, así como la generación distribuida, especialmente la renovable. Al respecto de la propuesta, en la nota eMail Enviado: La Corrupción del Sector Eléctrico Global se Nutre del Control de Precios, aclaré lo siguiente:

“Por la respuesta que Don Celso me ofreció,” luego de que leí el texto de la nota La pregunta a Celso Marranzini y al Gabinete
Eléctrico
“… me parece que no entendió la pregunta.” Cabe aclarar, que en el modelo EWPC el control de precios se mantiene en el transporte de electricidad para poder asegurar que la comercialización libre al por mayor y al detalle a los clientes se haga con base a una electricidad con calidad comercial que sea el resultado de la oferta y la demanda.

La respuesta que Celso Marranzini ofreció a la pregunta que aparece al final de dicho texto ¿Está de acuerdo con que se estudie la EWPC como parte del Plan Energético Nacional? fue que no estaba de acuerdo con eliminar el control de precios por los problemas que se suscitaron con la liberación de los mercados eléctricos al principio de siglo XXI. A decir verdad, precisamente por eso es que solicito que la CNE estudie la EWPC, porque sostengo que esos problemas se superan con el modelo EWPC. Es decir, que lo que dijo Marranzini que anteriormente parecía cierto, podría dejar de ser cierto y abrir grandes oportunidades de desarrollo a los dominicanos.


Es importante aclarar también que el miedo principal a la opción EWPC es que los clientes necesitan responder a precios que reflejan la oferta y la demanda a corto plazo, oponiéndose a la ilusión de la energía barata. Sobre esa ilusión, Peter Schwartz, el renombrado maestro en la Planificación por Escenarios en la Royal Dutch Shell, argumenta en su artículo American Energy Economics: Maximize demand and minimize supply…, que el derecho constitucional a la energía barata es el resultado de una política que los Estados Unidos de América inició después de la gran depresión basado en el paradigma del petróleo barato. Peter escribió (traducción libre de un servidor aquí y en su conclusión) que:

… la energía era abundante y barata durante la primera parte del siglo previo debido a nuestra dotación de recursos naturales, nuestro espíritu empresarial e innovador y a las políticas concertadas para mantener los precios de energía bajos. Esta situación de energía barata duró bastante desde el principio del siglo a durante la década de los años 1960 y debido a que le energía era tan barata durante esa era del alción (ave fabulosa que solo andaba sobre un mar tranquilo), la gente simplemente no tomó en cuenta el costo y la disponibilidad de la energía cuando tomó decisiones de inversión de capital.


En la conclusión de su artículo, Schwartz dice algo que debe guiar nuestro esfuerzo:

No podemos dar marcha atrás, debemos hacer la transición radical de un mundo de energía barata a uno de costo elevado, que tendrá implicaciones con respecto a dónde y cómo vivimos, dónde trabajamos y dónde compramos y jugamos.

Esto desde luego hacer incurrir en una petición de principio de dos nuevas preguntas que tratará en otras notas…

(1) ¿Cuáles son las opciones de política para equilibrar la oferta y la demanda (local)?
(2) ¿Cómo conseguimos pasar una reforma amplia de política energética por encima de la barrera política (por ejemplo, ¿harán los projectos Waxman-Markey/Kerry-Boxer el trabajo?)


Si el derecho constitucional a la energía barata perdió su sustento cuando recién copiábamos ese derecho con la CDE para desarrollar el país, sin tener los recursos energéticos, ni el espíritu innovador que habían tenido los Estados Unidos, es evidente que nos hemos hecho unas ilusiones totalmente desproporcionadas e infundadas. La industria eléctrica dominicana necesita con carácter de urgencia una transformación que coloque en la plena realidad.


domingo, enero 24, 2010

Huge States’ Costs as Utilities are Unable to Cross the Home Energy Management Chasm

There is a consensus that only high tech firms are able to cross the Home Energy Management chasm. While utilities still “owned their markets,” by state regulatory fiat and while state governments take those very costly risks, it is very doubful that the consumer will be the king of home energy management, even if the Federal Communication Commission fully implements interoperability standards and open networks. Huge value destruction will remain in the power industry under the status quo.


Huge States’ Costs as Utilities are Unable to Cross the Home Energy Management Chasm


By José Antonio Vanderhorst-Silverio, Ph.D.
Creator of the EWPC-AF
Systemic Consultant: Electricity

First posted in the GMH Blog, on January 24th 2010.

Copyright © 2010 José Antonio Vanderhorst-Silverio. All rights reserved. No part of this article may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, without written permission from José Antonio Vanderhorst-Silverio. This article is an unedited, an uncorrected, draft material of The EWPC Textbook. Please write to javs@ieee.org to contact the author for any kind of engagement.

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Katie Fehrenbacher keeps writing valuable articles in Earth2Tech.com, about the very important and timely state of the art issues of the high tech Smart Grid. This time I will question her article Why The Consumer Will Be King of Home Energy Management in 2010, while also quoting and integrating other articles by Katie mentioned below.

From the reasons introduced through the EWPC post “The Electric Power Industry is Missing a Vibrant Retail Market” and what is also added in here, I strongly doubt that the Consumer Will Be King of Home Energy Management (HEM) in 2010. Take for example the Technology Adoption Life Cycle (TALC) and follow Geoffrey Moore’s insights on his book Crossing the Chasm into the process of travelling the Bell curve that has a crack after early adoption. As Pike Research Managing Director Clint Wheelock explained, “the retail channel may become an important channel for these devices in 3 to 5 years,” but that "the early market will be driven by utilities."

Those two Katie’s quotes originated in Katie’s article Smart Grid Will Generate $200B of Global Investment, under which I posted two comments. The first paragraph of my first long post says:

It is interesting to note that Pike’s smart grid forecast do not include investments beyond the meter in accordance with the obsolete Investor Owned Utilities Architecture Framework (IOUs-AF) and its incremental extensions, such as the homogeneous smart grid. As you will see below, “…the impact of new technologies will be minimal in generation, moderate in transmission, important in distribution, and revolutionary beyond the meter. That means that predictions need to be based on the migration of value creation from supply to demand.”

Returning to Katie’s first article, in an email that she received from CEO Peter Porteous, he ratified the decision by Blue Line Innovations to shift, from their “primary focus since its 2003 launch” to the utility, to an emergent “primary focus to the consumer.” That signal should tell utilities that they will reached the dead end of the crack, which is called the Chasm, which high tech marketing companies know how to cross under the TALC. This is also confirmed by Katie, when she wrote that “As Gartner analyst Zarco Sumic told us, in the long run, “The vendors that will dominate will be the ones who know how to market, sell and meet the needs of the consumer space. It is a consumer technology play. It is not a utility play.”

But correct me if I am wrong, that in addition to the Chasm, there is still the huge regulatory barrier of the obsolete IOUs-AF, and its incremental extensions, like the regulated architecture Smart Grid. That barrier needs to be taken down to let customers freely choose the HEM they need. It will be very costly mistake by state governments to keep regulators making highly risky bets that result in a huge value destruction on HEMs tied to utilities offerings that will not be able to cross the Chasm.

I guess then the question is how long will it take state governments to change the rules of the game to open the power industry to the TALK, so that the consumer may be king? The problem is that state governments have let essential elements of the retail market, like energy sales and/or the metering infrastructure, continue to be “owned” by utilities, which is a barrier for HEMs to be whole product offerings that customers are able to choose to invest freely in said HEMs as well as the needed complementary product and services.

Katie’s article Why A French Regulator Is Bullying A Smart Grid Startup (please read the comments under the article, especially the historic lesson of the “Law of the Situation: the railroads did not understand”) has a remarkable example of my whole product reservations, that resulted in “a spat between a disgruntled utility that was losing revenues through an energy efficiency program and a smart grid tech startup that was helping utility customers save energy.” In fact, as Regis Mackenna stated about “owning a market,” in the foreword of Crossing the Chasm, “Customers do not like to be “owned,” if that implies lack of choice or freedom.”

That barrier was also described from another angle in a recent comment under Katie’s article How the FCC Will Promote Open Smart Grid Networks & Real Time Energy Data, as follows (with minor editing):

There is no guarantee that by only promoting open standards and commercial networks the power industry will be open to innovation. The power industry itself will need to be open. To do it, an understanding of the required architecture of the emergent power industry whole is also needed.

In order to actually open the power industry to innovation, as call by Mr. Nick Sinai, when he said “we must aspire for policies that facilitate the ferocious competition that drives innovation,” there is a need to change away from the obsolete and exceedingly complex (as a result of a large series of incremental extensions) Investor Owned Utilities Architecture Framework.

The change is to the emergent, simplified, and holistic Electricity Without Price Controls Architecture Framework, which is introduced in the post “States that Implement a Heterogeneous Grid are Poised to be the Winners.”


Thus, to enable the TALC, I suggest that a shift in energy policy is required away from the IOUs-AF to the technology neutral EWPC-AF. States governments are the responsible entities to change the policy, while the federal government should lead them in the process of enabling a uniform and effective change that enable customers’ to freely choose.


miércoles, enero 20, 2010

Tres Segmentos de Video sobre Pacto de Política de Electricidad

Estimado líder o estimada líder,

Muy cortésmente le informo, que debajo de la noticia Foro sugiere pacto superar el deficiente servicio electricidad, coloqué el siguiente comentario:

Destaco que, entre los planteamientos expuestos por Milton Morrison en ese evento, estuvo que la estructura actual se concentra en el desarrollo de los recursos de la oferta y que es necesario desarrollar los recursos de la demanda e introducir competencia en el mercado minorista. Mencionó el gran esfuerzo que he venido realizando para ofrecer la solución definitiva. Le agradecí el comercial, me respondió que era merecido y que lo que mencionó fue como resultado de lo que aparece en tres segmentos de video que pueden ver y escuchar, al que se llega con la nota "Solución Definitiva al Problema Eléctrico: Conversando con Milton Morrison Entrevista al Dr. José Vanderhorst,"en la dirección de Internet http://bit.ly/8e3sYZ

PARTE I - DIAGNOSTICO: UN GRANDISIMO DESORDEN EN EL LADO DE LA DEMANDA

PARTE II - EL CAMBIO DE PARADIMA DE LA INDUSTRIA ELECTRICA: LA TRANSICION HACIA UN SECTOR COMPETITIVO

PARTE III - UNA SOLUCION DESARROLLISTA: EL RENACIMIENTO DE LA INDUSTRIA ELECTRICA GLOBAL


Aprovecho la ocasión para sugerirle que, en adición a ver dichos videos, no deje de ver la nota Re: Is Google the New Enron?

Saludos,

José Antonio Vanderhorst-Silverio, Ph.D.
Consultor Sistémico: Electricidad
Creador del Modelo EWPC


lunes, enero 18, 2010

Conversaciones Estratégicas sobre Haití, la CDE y Google

Editorial del GMH
18 de enero, 2010

Desde que se inició hace casi cinco años, el Grupo Millennium Hispaniola, una propuesta para desarrollar la República Dominicana y Haití en este siglo, hemos venido tejiendo sostenidamente conceptos organizativos emergentes, orientados a apoyar la propuesta mencionada, inicialmente en la necesaria transformación del sector eléctrico, para poner en funcionamiento un sistema que persiga el máximo bienestar social. El aporte del GMH a nuestros vecinos haitianos, en este momento de intensa solidaridad, es que trabajemos juntos para implantar un cambio del estilo prevaleciente de gestión, a uno que facilite conversaciones estratégicas en los más altos niveles organizacionales, acordes con la incertidumbre reinante en el mundo de hoy que presagia un nuevo orden emergente. En esencia, necesitamos impulsar un círculo virtuoso en que nuestros países se refuercen mutuamente.

Como muestra palpable de la mencionada incertidumbre, el Foro Económico Mundial acaba de publicar su informe sobre los riesgos globales para el 2010, del que recojo dos palabras que sintetizan la crítica situación de la economía global: agudamente vulnerable. En ese informe se destaca que los tres riesgos mayores son: 1) La crisis de la deuda soberana de los Estados Unidos y del Reino Unido; 2) Más colapsos de precios de los activos. Se estima que China va a seguir los pasos del Japón en los años 90; y 3) Durmiendo hacia una crisis energética por falta de inversión.

Coincidiendo con el 50 aniversario de la CDE, hoy se ha convocado una reunión para organizar una cumbre entre gobiernos e instituciones donantes que será centrada en el desarrollo de Haití a corto y mediano plazos. Por los grandes enlaces sistémicos que unen la República Dominicana con Haití, entiendo que la cumbre es una magnifica oportunidad para adoptar un proceso de conversaciones estratégicas, amparadas no en proyecciones que funcionan en tiempos de baja incertidumbre, sino en la planificación por escenarios, que forma parte del sistema de conocimiento profundo sugerido por W. Edwards Deming. En ese sentido, reitero la sugerencia de que lean el artículo visionario A Better Decade Require the End of the Prevailing Style of Management.

Por ejemplo, con conversaciones estratégicas en el sector eléctrico amparadas en tres escenarios plausibles de futuro, uno de los cuales podría considerar la inminente desaparición definitiva de la CDEEE, porque la misma impida la existencia de un sistema (el todo vale más que suma de las partes) y por ende la expectativa de lograr el máximo bienestar social. Tal escenario puede basarse en la aparición en escena de Google Energy, que podría ser la señal emergente de que dicho escenario ya se activó. Al respecto, sugiero que los líderes dominicanos y haitianos, de todos los estratos, pongan mucha atención al artículo Is Google the New Enron?

Cabe indicar que, en ese escenario emergente, el empuje de la reestructuración hacia modelos organizativos radicalmente diferentes, a los que impulsa el estilo prevaleciente de gestión, es la aparición de los “agentes de software” que se suman por primera vez a nosotros, los agentes humanos, dentro de las estructuras de las organizaciones sociales. Esos agentes representativos de las tecnologías de información y comunicaciones son el nuevo elemento barato que está destinado a reemplazar el petróleo para impulsar un mayor nivel de productividad y bienestar, facilitando el desarrollo e implantación de sistemas socio técnicos y con ello las naciones del planeta.





Is Google the New Enron?

First update. Original comment and response on the EWPC Blog.

Comments

<< Even though Mr. Carson and all readers of the discussion now know that Enron's problems were related with EnronOnline >>

No, we "know" no such thing. I take exception to this tactic. Frankly, I should never have responded to your nonsense.
James Carson

Please take a look at the post "Re: Is Google the New Enron?" in the link http://bit.ly/59q1Ry
Jose Antonio Vanderhorst-Silverio

-----------------------

Even though a debate has already reaffirmed without doubt that “The answer should be a strong NO!,” there is additional evidence and requirements to support the “strong NO!” answer.

Is Google the New Enron?


By José Antonio Vanderhorst-Silverio, Ph.D.
Creator of the EWPC-AF
Systemic Consultant: Electricity


First posted in the GMH Blog, on January 17th 2010.

Copyright © 2010 José Antonio Vanderhorst-Silverio. All rights reserved. No part of this article may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, without written permission from José Antonio Vanderhorst-Silverio. This article is an unedited, an uncorrected, draft material of The EWPC Textbook. Please write to javs@ieee.org to contact the author for any kind of engagement.

Most Viewed on the EWPC Blog January 17th, 2010

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· Campaign for Fair Electricity Rates (34)


“Is Google the New Enron?” is a very good question that was raised by Ian Bell in earth2tech.com. Repeated under the EWPC post Can We Let Google and Wal*Mart be Global Energy Retailers?, my response was:

The answer should be a strong NO! Google Energy should be something very different than ENRON. ENRON was the result of an incomplete market, that lacked enough functionality, under a flawed architecture. That market was based on the obsolete Investor Owned Utilities Architecture Framework and its incremental extensions, that keep adding huge complexity.

An interesting debate under the article confirms the “strong NO!” The discussion started with Mr. Carson, who essentially took a tangent by writing that, to his “… knowledge there were no particular problems with…” EnronOnline. This was part of my first response: “I do not disagree that Mr. Carson may be right. His post, however, do not change at all my post.” As my first response might have left some doubt, however, in the ongoing discussion it was determined, without any doubt, that Enron and EnronOnline were “mutually dependent on each other.”

Even though Mr. Carson and all readers of the discussion now know that Enron’s problems were related with EnronOnline, this article will present additional evidence and requirements to further support the strong NO response. That response requires that Global Energy Retailers should emerge under a complete and fully functional architecture framework, as explained in the introductory post States that Implement a Heterogeneous Grid are Poised to be the Winners:

States legislatures need to empower state regulators to do the innovative job to satisfy the need for their constituencies that a homogeneous grid is no longer able to provide. To consider a heterogeneous grid, legislatures can take a look at the now closed debate between Mr. James Carson and I, under the EWPC article The Electricity Without Price Controls Architecture Framework (EWPC-AF).

As key evidence, it is important to know that Enron decided to pull the plug out of the domestic market as early as in 1998. The June issue of that year of the magazine Power Economics reads:

Enron has pointed the blame at the ‘competitive transition charge’ which the incumbent investor-owned utilities are collecting to offset their stranded costs. Because of this and the across-the-board rate cut of 10 per cent that was mandated by the state government, there is very little margin with which to make attractive offers – and a profit.


But we now know that the situation faced by what I call First Generation Retailers was the “result of an incomplete market, that lacked enough functionality, under a flawed architecture.” For that reason, Enron operated only in the dysfunctional wholesale market.

Google, Wal*Mart, Microsoft and/or any other potential global Second Energy Retailer will operate in the domestic market, which is where a revolution of value creation is in the making in the global power industry. As described in the EWPC article Forget Demand Side management (DSM); Think Demand Side Innovation (DSI), Second Generation Retailers will need to develop ongoing competitive business model innovations, that will include DSIs into their customers’ one stop service integrated offerings. That competition is not a price competition between First Generation Retailers, like the one that Enron described, but a system architecture competition between Second generation Retailers, like those of the Silicon Valley Model.

Nothing less than a complete and fully functional market is required to enable those innovations and the jobs and wealth that come with the development of the resources of the demand side. While the First Generation Retailers in today’s liberated markets depend on wholesale market price supply competition, the proposed Second Generation Retailers bridge the retail and wholesale markets. In that way, they compete in both markets, where the continuously changing wholesale market price is the result of both supply and demand.

As I said earlier, there eventually will emerge a set of global prudential regulations for Second Generation Retailers, so that merger and acquisition activity would be restricted. From the responses that I received at that time, I know that it is even difficult at the US federal level, unless the government takes the advice given in the EWPC article A Better Decade Require the End of the Prevailing Style of Management.

In that regard, the post Making Socio-Technical Architecture and “The Smart Grid Game” Mutually Reinforce Each Other, gives an example of how to have effective regulation by letting the system architect decide on the few critical systemic architecting issues, that do no belong to the prevailing political process, as explained in the September/October 2002 issue of the IEEE IT Professional magazine article “Less is More with Minimalist Architecture,” written by Ruth Malan and Dana Bredemeyer.



sábado, enero 09, 2010

Sobre las Declaraciones Sabias de la AIRD con Respecto a la Autonomía de la CDEEE

Debajo de la noticia Objetan partidismo en miembros consejos energía, publicada en el Periódico Hoy, coloqué el siguiente comentario:

En esencia, las declaraciones de la AIRD son muy sabias. Lo único que es cuestionable es la suposición de que la reforma del sector debe dar lugar a pasar de nuevo al sector privado la distribución de electricidad. Por ello, agrego que, para asegurar la transitoriedad, es muy importante que se respalde el esfuerzo que inició la Comisión Nacional de Energía para elaborar el Plan Energético Nacional (PEN).

Evidentemente, tenemos que asegurarnos de que dicho PEN persiga el máximo bienestar social del sector eléctrico en su conjunto, tal como sugerí en la aclaración a mi declaración a este mismo periódico, en la noticia "Opina decreto impulsaría década prosperidad CDEEE," que puede leerse en ese enlace de Internet, a igual que la próxima noticia.

Sobre el aspecto clave de los consejos directivos, pueden ver mi comentario en la noticia de este mismo periódico De Ramón favorece las medidas sector eléctrico.


jueves, enero 07, 2010

Can We Let Google and Wal*Mart be Global Energy Retailers?

First update. A few comments and their response on the original EWPC post

Comments

Enron imploded because of fraudulent accounting practices. Their EnronOnline subsidiary was a power market maker. To my knowledge there were no particular problems with them. That operation failed when the market took flight because of the parents' failure.
James Carson

I do not disagree that Mr. Carson may be right. His post, however, do not change at all my post.

With a great help from Mr. Carson, we discussed at lenght the article "The Electricity Without Price Controls Architecture Framework," which readers will enjoy by reading it at the hyperlink http://bit.ly/8XJlra

Global Energy Retailers need to compete in a complete and fully functional Electricity Without Price Control Architecture Framework, that keeps the delivery of electricity regulated.
Jose Antonio Vanderhorst-Silverio

Mr, Carson may also be wrong. EnronOnline was not independent of ENRON. Actually it became UBS and it strikes me that of the four parties in the Equity Transactions Litigation (see below) seems to be the larger amount of the settlement. James, please check for yourself and tell me what you think.


Equity Transactions Litigation

As part of its mission to liquidate remaining operations and distribute assets to its creditors, ECRC filed suit against Lehman Brothers Holdings, Inc., UBS AG, Credit Suisse and Bear Stearns in what is known as the Equity Transactions litigation.

This litigation stemmed from a series of payments made to the four banks on transactions involving Enron's stock in the months leading up to Enron's bankruptcy. These payments concerned a series of equity transactions known as swaps, forwards and derivatives.

The purpose of the lawsuit was to ensure that institutions did not retain fraudulent transfers, received pursuant to transactions that ECRC believed were entered into to help Enron present a misleading picture of the Company's financial health. Under the U.S. Bankruptcy Code, a Company may be required to return a payment made by an entity (here Enron) that subsequently goes bankrupt if the company making the payment was insolvent or inadequately capitalized at the time the payment was made, or if it made the payment with the intent to hinder, delay or defraud its creditors.

All four of these claims have been settled favorably, without any of the parties admitting any wrongdoing. These settlements resulted in the return of more than $248 million to ECRC for distribution to Enron's innocent creditors. The settlements have been as follows:

•April 2007: Lehman Brothers Holdings, Inc. settles for $69.9 million
•June 2007: UBS AG settles for $115 million
•June 2007: Credit Suisse settles for $61.5 million
•October 2007: Bear Stearns settles for $1 million plus waiver of other claims
Jose Antonio Vanderhorst-Silverio

Is their any truth to the first paragraph of Part 5 - Answer to Question 6 on my Presidential Pardon Petition, by Bobby Joseph Fontaine, September 07, 2009?

I knew Enron´s online energy and derivatives trading unit was at the center of controlling the logistics of the MTBE market while also central to managing the payments on the trillion dollar loan that was supposed to have been used to build MTBE refineries. So the principle on that loan had to be paid through Enron with money made from MTBE sales, or pretended sales, or the whole scheme would collapse. I knew there was no way that the head lawyer for this branch of Enron, which after it collapsed became UBSWenergy.com after a federal judge gave it, the only remaining profitable vestige of the Enron empire away for free to the United Bank of Switzerland at Warburg (UBSW), who just happened to have facilitated the trillion dollar loan to build MTBE refineries from money stolen by the KGB from the Soviets Union´s treasury at the end of the cold war, who then became the Russian Mafia in the US. But I knew that the head lawyer for UBSWenergy didn´t know the truth about the whole MTBE story.
Jose Antonio Vanderhorst-Silverio

I do not believe that transactions involving Enron stock were related to EnronOnline. I do not see how EnronOnline was associated with their MTBE refineries.
James Carson

There is no need to confirm, nor disconfirm, whether or not Bobby Joseph Fontaine told the truth about that "EnronOnline was associated with their MTBE refineries," to establish that Enron and EnronOnline were mutually dependent on each other.

According to Ken Peasnell, Professor of Accounting and Finance at LUMS and an expert on Corporate Governance, "From 1985 to 1999 Enron's net income rose from $125m to $893m; its market value grew from £2bn to $50.5bn." So Enron was well established and respected before EnronOnline made its first transactions in 1999. So, Enron and EnronOnline growth were the result of a virtuous circle that was trigger by Enron's credibility.

In addition, according to the Computerworld article "UBS snags Enron's online assets - But faces challenge of winning back customers," by Michael Meehan, published on January 21, 2002, "many experts considered the trading operations to be the keystone in Enron's one-time position as the seventh-largest company in the U.S."
Jose Antonio Vanderhorst-Silverio
Can We Let Google and Wal*Mart be Global Energy Retailers?

Under the article “Google Energy” Subsidiary: What’s Google Up To?, by Katie Fehrenbacher, I posted the following comment, which is at this moment awaiting moderation, in response to the interesting question "Is Google the new ENRON?" written by Ian Bell

The answer should be a strong NO! Google Energy should be something very different than ENRON. ENRON was the result of an incomplete market, that lacked enough functionality, under a flawed architecture. That market was based on the obsolete Investor Owned Utilities Architecture Framework and its incremental extensions, that keep adding huge complexity.

We should make sure that Google Energy, Wal*Mart Retail Energy and/or any other capable players, are able to participate in a federal (and global) complete and fully functional, simplified electricity market, as explained, for example, through the post “Ray Bell Predicts The Birth of Retail Energy in 2010,” which can be read by hitting the link http://bit.ly/7n2HaV

Based on the emergent Electricity Without Price Controls Architecture Framework (EWPC-AF), such a market will open the power industry to the real forces of innovation, as described in the article “A Better Decade Require the End of the Prevailing Style of Management,” which can similarly be read at http://bit.ly/8xQmIz


sábado, enero 02, 2010

A Better Decade Require the End of the Prevailing Style of Management

First update. Original comment by Utility Insider and its response

Comments

It is not unusual to start a year (and, some argue, a decade) saying we need to do things differently, but there are a lot of things we need to do the same. Do we need to change the prevailing style of management or press for the further evolution of the electric industry and its regulation? Is the same entrepreneurial, risk taking approach that is pressing for innovation in renewable technologies going to be the best approach to keep the lights burning? Will the financial markets going to be confident enough to lend to and invest in the utilities who will be putting up billions for the new generation that is needed for a clean future if its management abandons some of the staid practices that have given the industry generally high credit ratings?

Are we better off leaving the innovation to the innovators and using regulation to "encourage" conservative utilities to implement those innovations? We might be better off playing to strengths where they are beneficial and not moving to hybrid styles that end up being mediocre all around.
Utility Insider

Thank you for an interesting set of questions that enable me to add a lot of value to the article.

Utility Insider (UI): Do we need to change the prevailing style of management or press for the further evolution of the electric industry and its regulation?

José Antonio Vanderhorst-Silverio (JAVS): The reason we need to do things differently by changing the prevailing style of management is to raise productivity in the power industry to a higher plateau. For example, the 100 years old, Investor Owned Utilities Architecture Framework (IOUs-AF) and its incremental extensions have become obsolete, as value creation has shifted from supply to demand.

As you can see in the Electricity Without Price Controls Architecture Framework (EWPC-AF) introductory post "States that Implement a Heterogeneous Grid are Poised to be the Winners (bit.ly/6dZ780 )," the increasingly complex set of the incremental evolution of the IOUs-AF "... homogeneous grid is not longer able to meet the performance requirements of an increasingly share of demand. The apparently 'ridiculous' homogeneous grid disturbance costs, 'of [r]oughly the same as the entire wholesale sector? Half the retail value???,' are for real."

UI: Is the same entrepreneurial, risk taking approach that is pressing for innovation in renewable technologies going to be the best approach to keep the lights burning?

JAVS: As shown above, the homogeneous grid is no longer adding the expected value required in the digital era as they used to do in the old days to keep the lights burning. As shown in a comment under the Energy Pulse article "Tangled Network: Transmission or Meter Investments (http://bit.ly/65x8Lr )," to introduced a differentiated risk taking approach, starting the New Decade with the separation of the low risk utilities delivery investing, restricting utilities "to develop a regulated delivery only Smart Grid, [while] Second Generation Retailers develop the resources of the demand side, which coordinate customer investments while taking on the [high risk] metering infrastructure [investments]."

By the way, the expansion of the integrated transmission and distribution delivery infrastructure will be done at least costs in the EWPC-AF. The best approach then is to keep a low risk approach on delivery and an innovative risk taking approach on the development of the resources of the demand side. In the response to the remaining questions, further insights are revealed that satisfy this question.

IU: Will the financial markets going to be confident enough to lend to and invest in the utilities who will be putting up billions for the new generation that is needed for a clean future if its management abandons some of the staid practices that have given the industry generally high credit ratings?

JAVS: As utilities are restricted to regulated delivery, investment under the EWPC-AF will be in delivery technologies and not be in generation. The best response to the generation investment issue can be found in the September/October EnergyBiz issue Thought Leadership paper, which says:

The long-term future of generation resource development is almost unknowable today. It is possible to speculate that by 2050 coal genera¬tion may be in decline, and it is easy to forecast greater penetration of renewable resources both as central generation and distributed generation. However, by 2050 a va¬riety of new technologies will be available and forecasting what will suc¬ceed where is almost impossible. For this reason, investments in power system and IT technologies that can adapt to a new generation of any technology located anywhere, no matter what its operational characteris¬tics and limitations, is a critical action today. The longevity of the power system assets compared to the rapid pace of technology change in genera¬tion can be looked at as a hedge against an unknowable resource future. This may be the single most important message of this paper.

UI: Are we better off leaving the innovation to the innovators and using regulation to "encourage" conservative utilities to implement those innovations? We might be better off playing to strengths where they are beneficial and not moving to hybrid styles that end up being mediocre all around.

JAVS: We are much better off by letting Second Generation Retailers developing and implement business model innovations, while "using regulation to 'encourage' conservative utilities" to expand the integrate Smart Grid delivery only network at least costs. This way will "be better off playing to strengths where they are beneficial" to all stakeholders by aiming to the purpose of maximum social welfare, with a recurring virtuous circle of least cost regulated delivery and high value added given by the open market, fueled by the Silicon Valley Model. Please take a look at the EWPC-AF article in http://bit.ly/8XJlra that was introduced in my first response.
Jose Antonio Vanderhorst-Silverio

-----------------------------

As suggested by W. Edwards Deming, the main barrier to basic innovations, like the EWPC-AF, and an increased standard of living, is the prevailing style of management. A better decade is thus dependent on the adoption of Deming’s System of Profound Knowledge.

A Better Decade Require the End of the Prevailing Style of Management


By José Antonio Vanderhorst-Silverio, Ph.D.
Creator of the EWPC-AF
Systemic Consultant: Electricity

First posted in the GMH Blog, on January 2nd 2010.

Copyright © 2010 José Antonio Vanderhorst-Silverio. All rights reserved. No part of this article may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, without written permission from José Antonio Vanderhorst-Silverio. This article is an unedited, an uncorrected, draft material of The EWPC Textbook. Please write to javs@ieee.org to contact the author for any kind of engagement.

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This is the time of informed predictions on the New Year. As can be seen below, I was led to concentrate myself not just on the New Year, but on the New Decade to predict the widespread adoption of the Electricity Without Price Control Architecture Framework (EWPC-AF), which I designed as a basic innovation.

In order to get introduced to the emergent holistic EWPC-AF, please take a look at the post States that Implement a Heterogeneous Grid are Poised to be the Winners. Similarly, the article EWPC as a Timely Basic Innovation “…involve not just a single new technology but a collection of new inventions, practices, distribution networks, businesses and business models, and shifts in personal and organizational thinking.”

In his post Systemic failure requires new holistic cure, Mark Montgomery clearly summarizes the barrier to the adoption of a the EWPC-AF: “The current system so protects the status quo that it all but assures that new systems will not be adopted, particularly any system that is effective, thus either killing innovations or neutralizing functionality in the adoption process.” So as W. Edwards Deming suggested we need to change the prevailing style of management to allow for the development of the EWPC-AF basic innovation in the New Decade.

This article expands on the EWPC post The Electric Power Industry is Missing a Vibrant Retail Market, which was posted under the blog post On the Evolution of Technology, by Jason Pontin, the Editor in Chief and Publisher of Technology Review. The text of this post has evidence that the missing retail market is in fact due to the prevailing style of management, which is based on obsolete mechanical thinking instead of on systemic thinking that leads to a superior solution path.

Further evidence is given in the EWPC article Think Deming to Enable Much More than Just Freedom, whose summary says “Deming’s economics replaces the prevailing system [I learned that is better to keep the word style, because the system might be already destroyed] of management with a system of profound knowledge to push economies onto a higher productivity plateau. With the new economics, EWPC will enable a superior solution path.”

In one paragraph of that EWPC article I wrote that “… to lead the transformation of the prevailing system [style] of management to get the world to begin ‘pulling the whole group of core economies onto that higher productivity plateau,’ as Carlota Pérez, describes in her book ‘Technological Revolutions and Financial Capital.’ That is the way to get capitalism back to its roots, as the American forefathers wished.”

That said, this article was triggered by the post Natural technology evolution vs. failed innovation?,bylilykim on 12/29/2009, that was also posted under Pontin’s blog post. The reader will see that lilykim said that “This piece reminded me of an article I read earlier this year by Michael Mandel of Business Week on "The Failed Promise of Innovation in the US"… Mandel claims that failed technological innovation has contributed to the slow economy... I'm curious what others think of Mandel's ideas, especially in the context of Arthur's theories on technology evolution.

Without loss of generality, the needed context on Arthur’s theories on the EWPC-AF can be restricted from what Pontin writes:

Arthur makes a distinction between bodies of technology, or "domains," such as electronics, photonics, and microfluidics, and their individual technologies. Domains emerge "piece by piece." Technologies within domains may be adopted quickly, but only after those domains have been encountered first by users who are bewildered. What are these technologies? How are they used? What do they allow people to do that could not be done before, or at least not as efficiently? Always, new domains betray "missing pieces" that technologists must develop before useful applications can be successfully commercialized. All this, says Arthur, "normally takes decades. It is a very, very slow process."

In the EWPC post about the retail markets, I also mentioned Demand Response, as “missing pieces” to successfully commercialize the modern power systems. However, the reason why the retail markets are missing has taken decades is not technological, but government intervention I mentioned that are also based on the prevailing style of management.

The New Decade was framed by what Mandel asks at the beginning of his article: “… What if outside of a few high-profile areas, the past decade has seen far too few commercial innovations that can transform lives and move the economy forward? What if, rather than being an era of rapid innovation, this has been an era of innovation interrupted? And if that's true, is there any reason to expect the next decade to be any better?” The New Decade will be better if Deming’s system of profound knowledge is adopted.

Just as I mentioned under Pontin’s post, the EWPC-AF as a basic innovation results “when all required technologies became available, and were tightly integrated.” In the same light, Mendel writes that “Of course, no industrial revolution in the past has been based on a single technology. A combination of radio, television, flight, antibiotics, synthetic materials, and automobiles drove the productivity surge of the early and mid-20th century. The Industrial Revolution of the second half of the 19th century combined railroads, electricity, and the telegraph and telephone.”

He adds, “Similarly, for sustainable economic growth, the U.S. needs breakthrough innovations outside of core IT. Some technologies weren't ready for prime time 10 years ago but have matured.” The author says that organogenesis and MEMS have matured, but adds that “The imponderables are biotech and alternative energy… the potential for innovation in alternative energy is enormous, but it's hard to know which approach will pay off.” Alternative energy especially that involved as distributed demand resources need to be approached under the EWPC-AF.