November 13, 2006—Black & Veatch, through its management consulting and energy businesses, has announced the findings from its First Annual Strategic Directions in the Utility Industry Survey during the Edison Electric Institute’s 41st Annual Financial Conference.
Electric service reliability was ranked overall as the top concern facing industry respondents.
The survey collected information from 240 US power industry professionals, and provides specific insights into how executives and managers rank and assign relative importance to the most pressing issues currently facing their operations. The survey was administered by an independent third party, the Sierra Energy Group, the market intelligence and research arm of Energy Central.
Survey respondents were broadly representative of the electric power industry in the United States , with 51 percent from investor-owned utilities (IOUs), which distribute about 75 percent of all electric power in the country; 19 percent from municipal utilities; and 30 percent from electric co-operatives (Co-ops), independent power producers (IPPs), regional transmission organizations (RTOs), and power-related consultants, and vendors.
The survey, completed in late August, identified that IOUs and municipal utilities rank the reliability of electric service and the aging workforce as two of their top three primary concerns.
The survey also revealed that 47 percent of the IOU respondents regard their power generation operations as being “near the end,” “at the end,” “past” or “well past” their planned service lives.
The complete survey results are available free of charge by contacting Black & Veatch at laytonge@bv.com or by visiting the companys management consulting Web site.
