Today's U.S. Electric Power Industry, Renewable Energy, ISO Markets, & Electric Power Transactions Seminar

This in-depth two-day program provides a comprehensive and clear explanation of the structure, function, and current status of today's U. S. electric power industry; the fundamentals of ISO day-ahead auctions, LMP, FTRs and capacity markets; the operational and economic issues raised by the integration of solar, wind, distributed generation, and demand response power resources into the existing Power Grid; how to market and trade physical and financial electricity both within and outside an ISO footprint; and how heat-rate-linked, spark spread, and tolling deals are structured within and outside of Texas. Each part of this complex industry will be explained in a step-by-step fashion and then all the pieces will be integrated using several clear cut examples so that attendees will leave with an understanding of "how it all fits together."

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The seminar also addresses the basics of the electricity futures contracts which trade on the Intercontinental ("ICE")and Chicago Mercantile ("CME") Exchanges.

What You Will Learn

1. The structure and function of the electric service system, its terminology and units, and the properties of electricity.
2. How the North American power grid is structured and how it operates; how the major sources of electric generation work ( coal, natural gas, nuclear, renewables ) and the issues they face; how control areas, spinning reserves, AGC and economic dispatch works.
3. Who the key players in the industry are, and why the industry is so difficult to restructure.
4. The differences between cost-of-service regulation, open access markets, ISOs, transcos, ITCs, RTOs, and ICTs.
5. What the "smart grid" is, a summary of the different business models being tested, a discussion of the key issues and and how the smart grid is likely to develop.
6. The major issues facing wind energy, solar and other renewables and how these generation sources relate to the proposed buildout of the backbone power grid.
7. How ISO Day-Ahead auction markets operate in PJM, New York, Texas, California and other markets; what locational marginal pricing (LMP) is, and why it is important; how LMP is applied in the ISO markets, and why FTRs, TCCs, CRRs, TLRs, RPM and forward capacity markets are important concepts to understand. (The seminars presented at the Houston and California locations will discuss the Texas and California/Western Power markets respectively. Philadelphia, New York and Washington D.C. seminars will focus on PJM, MISO and the New York ISO.)
8. What capacity markets and resource adequacy are, and how these important issues affect the integration of wind, solar and other renewables and how all these issues relate to demand response and the Smart Grid. You will also learn what California's new "Energy Imbalance Market" and "Duck Curve" are and why these topics are important.

You Will Also Learn

1. The structure and characteristics of the wholesale bilateral spot and forward physical and financial power markets.
2. The terminology, concepts and mechanics of power marketing & trading, and the difference between physical, scheduled and contract path power flows.
3. Why open access retail electricity markets may finally now develop.
4. The details of how to structure and execute wholesale and retail power marketing transactions both within and outside of an ISO footprint - including common contract language, NERC tags, LMP basis risk, NITS & ancillary service charges, etc.
5. What "sellers choice is", and how forward "daisy chains" form at virtual trading hubs.
6. How to financially trade physical power with financial bookouts.
7. How power marketing wholesale and retail transactions are done within the ISOs, why wholesale bilateral transactions in theses markets are primarily financial, AND how each piece of end-user transactions is assembled and hedged step-by-step, including price, basis, delivery, NITs charges, UCAP charges, ancillary charges, etc.
8. An overview of the three different types of forward electricity markets: physical, over-the-counter financial and CME & ICE electricity futures contracts.
9. The basics of the ICE and CME electricity cash-settled futures contracts, and how these contracts can be used to hedge electricity price and LMP spread risk.
10. How the Dodd-Frank law implementation is impacting power markets.
11. An introduction to electricity swaps and Cfds and how these relate to ISO financial transmission rights (FTRs, CRRs and TCCs).
12. The difference between operating, economic, market and negotiated heat rates, and what spark spreads, dark spreads, are bark spreads are.
13. What "tolling deals" are, and how the powerful techniques of physical and financial heat-rate-linked power transactions work.
14. Spread trading, trading around assets, how to make electricity financially "jump" between regions, and other basic power trading techniques.
15. How a natural gas-fired generating plant is a call option on the spark spread, what "optionality" means, and a simple rule to use to optimize the economics of a merchant generating plant.

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Your Instructor

John Adamiak
John Adamiak is President and Founder of PGS Energy Training and an expert in energy derivatives and electric power markets. Mr. Adamiak is a well-known and highly effective seminar presenter who has over 20 years experience in the natural gas and electric power industries. His background includes 15 years as a seminar instructor, 9 years of energy transaction experience, and 6 years of strategic planning and venture capital activities. John's academic background includes an M.B.A. degree from Carnegie Mellon University.

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