This collection of papers and books deals with the behavior of utilities as they choose to use new sources of power. David Nye provides an excellent treatment of the early history of the electric utility — and its impact on industry — in consuming power. From there, I’d move to Hyman’s book. An investment banker, he has a keen eye for how finance helped mold the electric industry into the beast we see today. He’s particularly good on the energy trust of Samuel Insull and later on the decline of the electric power industry from the early 1960s through the mid-1980s.

To get up-to-date quickly on how the investor-owned utilities in America are dealing with green tech, check out the Electric Power Research Institute’s journals. They provide a quick guide to what’s on the minds of utility execs. Then, if you want to drill down on specifics, take a look at the excellent work that the good folks at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory have carried out about energy markets, contracts, and risk.

I’d really like to flesh out this section with a lot more resources, so if you’ve got them, send them to alexis.madrigal[at]gmail.com.

A. Akhil and A. Landgrebe, Advanced lead-acid batteries for utility applications, 1991

E. Aronson and M. Edenbum, Electric utility capacity expansion and energy production models for energy policy analysis for Sandia, 1997

Devra Ruth Bachrach, Comparing the Risk Profiles of Renewable and Natural Gas Electricity Contracts, Berkeley Master’s Thesis, 2002

Galen Barbose, “Pursuing Energy Efficiency as a Hedge against Carbon Regulatory Risks: Current Resource Planning Practices in the West” for LBNL, 2008

Galen Barbose, “Reading the Tea Leaves: How Utilities in the West Are Managing Carbon Regulatory Risk in their Resource Plans” for LBNL, 2008

L.B. Barnett, Utility solar water heating workshops for NREL, 1992

L.A. Bird, K.S. Cory, and B.G. Swezey, Renewable Energy Price-Stability Benefits in Utility Green Power Programs for NREL, 2008

Mark Bolinger and Ryan Wiser, Balancing Cost and Risk: The Treatment of Renewable Energy in Western Utility Resource Plans for the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, 2005

Mark Bolinger, Ryan Wiser, and William Golove, Accounting for fuel price risk when comparing renewable to gas-fired generation: the role of forward natural gas prices in Energy Policy, 2006

Mark Bolinger, Ryan Wiser, and William Golove, “Quantifying the value that wind power provides as a hedge against volatile natural gas prices” for LBNL, 2002

Mark Bolinger, Ryan Wiser, and William Golove, ““Revisiting the “Buy versus Build” decision for publicly owned utilities in California considering wind and geothermal resources”” for LBNL, 2001

M.C. Brower, K. Bell, and P. Spinney, Evaluating the risk-reduction benefits of wind energy for NREL, 1997

P.C. Butlet, Utility battery storage systems. Program report for FY95 for Sandia, 1996

S. Calvert, P. Goldman, and E. DeMeo, The EPRI/DOE Utility Wind Turbine Performance Verification Program, 1997

M. Coddington, R.M. Margolis, and J. Aabakken.Utility-Interconnected Photovoltaic Systems: Evaluating the Rationale for the Utility-Accessible External Disconnect Switch

DOE, 1992 PVUSA progress report, 1992

DOE, Renewable energy and utility regulation, 1991

DOE, Thermal Energy Storage at a Federal Facility, 2000

DOE, Utility Energy Services Contracts: Lessons Learned, 2001

EPRI Journal, Carbon Economics, Winter 2008

EPRI Journal, Putting Wind on the Grid, Spring 2006

EPRI Journal, Renewables, Summer 2007

James Eyre, Bill Erdman, and Joseph Ianucci, Innovative applications of energy storage in a restructured electricity marketplace : Phase III final report : a study for the DOE Energy Storage Systems Program, 2005

E. Hirst, Statistical recoupling: A new way to break the link between electric-utility sales and revenues, 1993

E. Hirst, Electric-utility DSM programs: 1990 data and forecasts to 2000, 1992

Leonard Hyman, America’s Electric Utilities: Past Present and Future, 1988

Lee Keilman, SMUDGEO #1, Sacramento Municipal Utility District First Geothermal Unit for EPRI, 1980

Kristina LaCommare and Joseph Ito, Tracking the Reliability of the U.S. Electric Power System: An Assessment of Publicly Available Information Reported to State Public Utility Commissions, 2008

D. Logan, C. Neil, and A. Taylor, Modeling renewable energy resources in integrated resource planning for NREL, 1994

J.E. Meeks, Antitrust concerns in the modern public utility environment, 1996

John Nimmons, State-by-State Analysis of Public Utility Laws Affecting Geothermal Direct Heat Applications, 1979

James Nugent, Geothermal Electric Projects from a User’s Viewpoint for EPRI, 1980

David Nye, Consuming Power, 1998

D.E. Osborn, Sustained utility implementation of photovoltaics. Final report for the DOE, 1998

S. Rayner, Sociocultural definitions of risk, 1990

R.G. Richards, Financing needs and constraints from a utility viewpoint, 1978

M.N. Schwartz and B.H. Bailey, Wind forecasting objectives for utility schedulers and energy traders for NREL, 1998

B. Tonn and A. Schaffhauser, Perspectives on the future of the electric utility industry, 1994

Y. Wan and BK Parsons, Factors Relevant to Utility Integration of Intermittent Renewable Technologies for NREL, 1993

Ryan Wiser and E. Kahn, Alternative windpower ownership structures: Financing terms and project costs, 1996

Ryan Wiser and S. Pickle, Financing Investments in Renewable Energy: The Role of Policy Design and Restructuring for Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, 1997

H.W. Zaininger and P.R. Barnes, Integrating photovoltaics into utility distribution systems for the DOE, 1995

H.W. Zaininger, P.R. Ellis, and J.C. Schaefer, The integration of renewable energy sources into electric power distribution systems. Volume 2, Utility case assessments for ORNL, 1994

William Warwick, A Primer on Electric Utilities, Deregulation, and Restructuring of U.S. Electricity Markets, 2002

Image: Edison Electric Plant in Quincy, MA. Library of Congress.