Pipes & Wires
THE JOURNAL OF COOL ENERGY
& UTILITIES STUFF
Issue 57 – March 2007
From the director…
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Welcome
to Pipes & Wires #57 – there has been a lot of activity since #56,
so this month we will examine about $155b of deals as well as examining some policy
debates and regulatory determinations. Key
deals we will examine include the proposed AGL – Origin merger, the
privatisation of Texas Utilities, and E.On’s long running bid for Endesa. We
also examine two tariff determinations of vastly differing natures and take a
quick review of the nationalisation in Venezuela. This
issue concludes with a look at the life and times of the man who built an
electric empire. So until next month … happy reading. |
About Utility Consultants
Utility Consultants Ltd is a
management consultancy specialising in the following aspects of energy
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Disclaimer
These articles are of a general nature and
are not intended as specific legal, consulting or investment advice, and are
correct at the time each article was written. In particular Pipes & Wires
may make forward looking or speculative statements, projections or estimates of
such matters as industry structural changes, merger outcomes or regulatory
outcomes.
Utility Consultants Ltd accepts no liability
for action or inaction based on the contents of Pipes & Wires including any
loss, damage or exposure to offensive material from linking to any websites
contained herein.
New publications
Utility Consultants is pleased to
offer two new publications specialising in regulation of pipes & wires
utilities. These publications deal specifically with cost of capital (WACCWatch) and
key conclusions of regulatory determinations (RegulatoryRoundup).
Conference papers
Utility Consultants has recently
presented the following conference papers which are available upon request…
·
“Tariff
control of Pipes & Wires utilities – where is it heading??” – presented
at the NZIGE Spring Technical Seminar,
October 2006.
“Setting
service levels for utility networks” – presented at the Electricity Network
Asset Management Summit, November 2006.
NZ – 2007 electricity asset management
plans
The Commerce Commission has recently advised the
following…
·
That
the format for AMP disclosure in 2007 (ie. during the year ending 31 March
2008) will be based on the Requirements that were promulgated on 31 March 2006.
Hence there will be no change from the disclosure format required for the year
ending 31 March 2007 including the disclosure date of 30 August (which will be
30 August 2007 for the year ending 31 March 2008).
·
Given
that this will be the second disclosure under the revised Requirements the
Commission expects AMPs to be fully compliant.
For help with your AMP pick here
or call Phil on (07) 854-6541.
A quote to ponder…
“In order to get more competition
into our electricity market, we need to have more regulation” – Representative
Brady Wiseman in the Montana Legislature,
February 2007.
In a seeming contradiction in
terms Wiseman’s statement actually conveys much wisdom, although the term “more
regulation” might be better replaced with “better regulation”. A bit of
reflection on the characteristics of energy markets, such as their
capital-intensive nature, the need for reasonable scale and the need for
investment certainty suggests that establishing and maintaining competition
will require well thought out regulation and not simply “more regulation”.
Aus – AGL and Origin propose merger
Introduction
After a few months of speculation
that Australian Gas Light and Origin Energy were considering a
merger, formal statements from both companies emerged on 5 February indicating
that they were entering into “merger of equal” discussions with each other.
Late last month, however, Origin rebuffed AGL’s nil-premium approach and
indicated that it was up to AGL to make the next move. Only time will tell
whether or not the merger proceeds, but the opportunity for some analysis of a
deal this big was too good to pass up.
The proposed merger
The last dozen or so issues of
Pipes & Wires have covered the horizontal and vertical consolidation of
much of the Australian energy value chain, so it’s hardly surprising that the
two emergent heavyweights have considered a merger. As described in Pipes
& Wires #56, a merged AGL-Origin would have about 6,000,000 electricity
and gas retail customers and a market capitalisation somewhere around $13b to
$14b.
Burning regulatory issues
Following on from AGL’s very
recent successful acquisition of PowerDirect,
a merged AGL-Origin would have almost a 100% share of the Queensland and South
Australian electricity markets and about a 64% share of the Victorian
electricity market.
The most obvious approach (which it
appears AGL has already given quite a bit of thought to) is a divestment of
generation and retail customers which analysts have estimated could be in the
“hundreds of thousands”. Possible options include the floating of PowerDirect
or both Origin and AGL combining sufficient assets into a separate entity that
could be sold off to meet likely regulatory requirements - the size of whatever
gets sold off could be pretty large, reminiscent of the €900m of concessions
that E.On was prepared to make to acquire Ruhrgas back in 2003.
Getting buyers that are not
prohibited from gaining further market share could also be a significant problem
in itself – TRUenergy would probably
be prohibited from gaining further market share in Victoria, whilst Snowy Hydro would be unlikely to
acquire further retail customers without acquiring additional generation.
The way forward may have become
clearer by next month, so hopefully Pipes & Wires will be able to make further
comment.
US – privatising TXU
Introduction
Texas
Utilities (TXU) is probably best remembered for its early entry into the
deregulated UK and Australian electricity and gas markets in the mid 1990’s,
followed by its near bankruptcy about 5 years ago. TXU returned to the news late
last month as the subject of a US$44b private equity buy-out. This article
briefly examines the proposed deal and why TXU might be so attractive.
The proposed deal
The lead partners Kohlberg, Kravis Roberts & Co and Texas Pacific Group will pay $32b
in cash and assume about $12b in debt, and will be joined by Goldman Sachs, Lehman Brothers, Citigroup and Morgan Stanley. The new board will
include former Secretary of State James A Baker III, former
Commerce Secretary Donald
L Evans and former EPA Administrator William Reilly.
Why TXU
Institutional (and pension fund)
interest in electric and gas utilities has emerged as a significant force over
the last few years as utility ownership reshuffles. A little reflection reveals
the following characteristics…
·
They tend to be pipes & wires (rather than energy).
·
Those pipes & wires are experiencing strong throughout growth.
·
The surrounding regulatory framework is either locked in for 5
years or is otherwise very stable.
·
The investment model is strongly biased towards yield rather than
growth.
These characteristics have
certainly been prevalent in recent utility sales such as the SP AusNet and Spark Infrastructure floats,
and the UK regional gas network sales. Conversely most of us probably think of
vertically integrated US utilities like TXU as having a high proportion of
market risk exposure which has proven to be the undoing of some – so why TXU ??
A few possible answers could be…
·
Deregulation in Texas in 2002 which seemed to reverse TXU’s
downward slide to the point where it returned a $2.5b profit for 2006.
·
The recent disconnect between TXU’s underlying earnings and it
stock price.
·
The low cost and stability of TXU’s generation (largely coal and
nuclear) relative to wholesale electric rates which reflect natural gas prices
in Texas.
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Having people in the right place to positively manage stakeholder
concerns.
·
Texas regulators’ willingness to allow private equity
participation.
TXU’s board will be seeking
shareholder approval for the deal over the next few weeks.
Spain – E.On edges closer to Endesa
Introduction
E.On’s
drawn out €41b bid for Endesa reached its
final step last month as the Endesa board determined that the offer was fair to
shareholders (readers might recall that the original bid was for €29.1b).
Endesa’s board has arranged a general shareholders’ meeting later this month to
recommend that E.On’s offer be accepted. This article recounts some key
features of the Endesa bid and includes some relevant comments on E.On’s
successful bid for Ruhrgas and abandoned
bid for ScottishPower.
Key themes of the Endesa bid
Some of the key themes of the
Endesa bid have been…
·
A strong alignment to the very clearly articulated prong of the “On
Top” strategy (refer to Pipes
& Wires #48) to use E.On Energie to consolidate the European
electricity & gas markets.
·
As always, E.On’s disciplined financial approach to acquisitions
that resulted in the ScottishPower bid being abandoned.
·
A conflict of the EU objectives of free flow of investment and the
distinctly national interests of the Spanish Government who appeared to prefer Gas Natural as a suitor for Endesa.
Similar regional-national issues also characterised the Ruhrgas sale process
and the French Government’s preference for Gaz de
France to merge with Suez in preference to ENEL.
·
Various regulatory concessions dealing with issues such as
maintaining planned CapEx, maintaining competition in retail energy markets and
divesting various generation plants. Our 2003 research report
on E.On’s acquisition of Ruhrgas examines many of these issues.
The end game
The final step is for Endesa’s board
to persuade shareholders to remove the 10% cap on the voting rights of any one shareholder – E.On has
indicated that it may still walk away from the deal if the cap is not lifted.
An extraordinary meeting scheduled for 20 March will vote on this issue and
seek general shareholder approval for the deal. Pipes & Wires will make
further comment (hopefully next month) as the end game plays out.
Late breaking news
ENEL
has just paid €39 per share for a 9.9% stake in Endesa in a move that caused
E.On shares to shed 6%. E.On remains undeterred in its bid for 100% of Endesa.
South Africa – will RED1 sink or swim
??
Introduction
Readers may recall that about 3
years ago Pipes & Wires ran a three part article on consolidating
electricity distribution in Africa. Pipes & Wires #28 examined
the proposed voluntary consolidation of ESKOM’s distribution and about 190
municipal distributors into between 5 and 15 Regional Electricity Distributors
(RED’s). This article examines the unwillingness of many distributors in the
Western Cape area to join RED1 and the subsequent revocation of RED1’s license
by the National
Electricity Regulator.
Background
RED1 was established on 1 July
2005, with the expectation that the transfer of staff and assets of the City of Cape Town’s electricity department
would be completed by 1 July 2006 at which time RED1 would be granted a six
month license by the NER. It was expected that the transfer of staff and assets
from ESKOM’s Western Region would be completed by 1 July 2007. RED1 was to be a
pilot for the wider industry consolidation, and was fully endorsed by the City
of Cape Town. This endorsement was not surprising given that RED1 was to be a
“municipal entity” under the control of a board appointed by the City of Cape
Town.
Things
start to unravel
Ownership of RED1 by the City of
Capetown proved contentious from the start as the other municipalities observed
that they could lose the profits from their respective electricity departments.
In October 2006 the Government announced that all six RED’s would be set up as
public entities and be owned by EDI Holdings (the company set up by the
Government to restructure the industry). Not surprisingly the City of Cape Town
said it was not interested in transferring staff and assets into a public
entity and foregoing the profits from its electricity undertaking.
About this time the EDI stepped
in and indicated that local government would retain the power to apply
“municipal surcharges” to electricity sales, and further indicated that the
City of Cape Town’s presumption (about losing electricity income) was
incorrect.
Recent
events
In a round about way, RED1 didn’t
come together as planned by 31 December 2006. The NER determined that it
couldn’t extend RED1’s electricity supply license because it had failed to meet
the conditions the original six month license was subject to, leaving RED1 as a
shell company employing 3 people and returning the electricity distribution
function back to the City of Cape Town until June 2007. A possible option is
for the City of Cape Town to sell RED1 to EDI Holdings.
It would seem that this has
gazzumped the entire electricity distribution reform process, so Pipes &
Wires will make further comment as matters progress.
Aus – Alinta seeks Supreme Court ruling
(errata)
As a follow up to the article in Pipes
& Wires #56, I have been advised that the statement “The ESC Appeals Tribunal had previously ruled
that the ESC “had no authority to make electricity distributors reveal costs
and revenues” which obviously applies to AAM’s relationship with United Energy” at the end of the first
paragraph was incorrect.
In the matter of an appeal by Alinta Network
Services Pty Ltd against the issue of Section 37 information notices by the ESC
during the Electricity Distribution Price Review in 2005 the Panel did conclude
that the functions of the ESC clearly encompassed price regulation and this
included a power to obtain details of costs incurred in the industry. The Panel did not accept arguments that
Section 37 was restricted to enquiries to regulated entities. Rather, the Panel confirmed that the ESC had
the power to obtain details of industry costs from subcontractors such as Alinta.
The Appeal Panel did however accept that the scope of the information request
and the time provide to respond was unreasonable and that on this ground the
Panel upheld Alinta's appeal.
Similar issues again
rose when United Energy Distribution
appealed the final electricity decision by the ESC. The Appeal Panel noted that
it was reasonable for the Commission “to enquire into the issue of incentives
in relation to non-arm’s length dealing and, in this regard, to seek
information as to the underlying costs of Alinta to calculate…operating costs”.
Evidence provided by Alinta Network Services
indicated that about 917,000 electronic files and between 1,000,000 and
5,000,000 pages of paper files would need to be inspected and collated. The ESC
accepted that a requirement to perform this volume of work would be
unreasonable.
Utility Consultants apologies for
this error and has placed a suitably amended Pipes & Wires #56 on our
website.
US – competing bills in the Montana legislature
Introduction
Many states in the US have
deregulated their electricity sectors, and it would be fair to say that some
(such as California) have been burnt really bad whilst others (such as
Pennsylvania) have benefited from the process. This article examines two competing
bills currently working their way through Montana’s legislative process…
·
Democrat Senator Greg Lind’s bill that would prohibit
pre-approval of capacity.
·
Republican Representative Alan Olson’s
bill that would “re-regulate” and require pre-approval of new capacity.
Lind’s bill
Lind’s bill would prohibit
pre-approval of new generation capacity by the Montana
Public Service Commission. Lind’s reasoning for this is that
pre-approval of new capacity (including the tariffs it can charge) by the
Commission effectively shifts investment risk from utilities to consumers.
Under the bill, builders of new capacity would build and then seek approval
from the Commission to operate.
Olson’s
bill
Olson’s bill takes the exact opposite
stance of requiring pre-approval of new generation capacity so that utilities
can be confident of fully recovering their investment.
What are
the key issues ??
The key issues as I see them from
half a world away are…
·
The need to get a reasonable sharing of investment risk.
·
The need to ensure that new capacity gets built (ie. have a market that
is firstly effective and then efficient).
Shifting all of the investment
risk to utilities is hardly likely to encourage new generation, especially if
the regulatory framework has pre-approved the tariffs of incumbent generators
who can be certain of recovering their investment. This raises the second issue
of foregoing some possible efficiencies to make sure the market doesn’t
collapse totally from lack of generation.
At the time of writing Olsen’s
bill was approved 69-31 despite opponents trying to delay its passage by
requesting amendments. Pipes & Wires will make further comment as news
emerges.
Aus – AGL acquires PowerDirect
Introduction
Pipes
& Wires #51 examined some of the policy and regulatory issues behind
the proposed sale of the Queensland Government’s energy retail businesses Sun
Retail, Sun Gas and PowerDirect. Pipes
& Wires #55 went on to examine the partial sale of Sun Retail to Origin Energy and the sale of Sun
Gas to Australian Gas Light. This article
examines AGL’s successful purchase of PowerDirect and brings this series of
articles to a close.
The
PowerDirect sale
AGL paid $1.2b for PowerDirect or an average of $1,300 per
customer, amounting to an EBITDA multiple of 9.8x. PowerDirect has a total
annual consumption of 19,000GWh and comprises the following…
·
431,800 residential accounts, comprising both franchised customers
in Queensland which will become contestable on 1 July 2007, and contestable
customers in other states.
·
37,800 small contestable customer accounts in NSW, SA and
Victoria.
·
3,600 commercial and industrial customer accounts in Queensland,
NSW, Victoria and SA. These customers amount to 14,400 of the total 19,000GWh
of annual sales.
·
43MW of generation including two plants fuelled by sugar cane
waste and macadamia nut shells respectively.
The PowerDirect acquisition fits well with AGL’s strategy of
matching its retail profile with generation. It would also seem that
PowerDirect could play a significant role in meeting regulatory requirements.
Argentina – Edesur gets a tariff
increase
Introduction
It’s been a long time since Pipes
& Wires examined the Latin American energy sector. This article briefly
examines the recent tariff increase awarded to Endesa
subsidiary Edesur, the distributor
supplying 2,100,000 customers in and around the southern half of Buenos Aires.
The tariff increase
The Government recently ratified
a 38% increase for all tariff classes except residential customers, which will
amount to about €4.7m per month. This is the first tariff increase Edesur has
been permitted to make since the devaluation of the Peso in 2002, enabling
Edesur to reinvest about €60m per year in supply reliability.
Reasons for the tariff increase
Readers may recall from Pipes
& Wires #12 that when the Peso was floated in 2002 it devalued about
73%. Because many utilities had their debt denominated in US$ that debt
suddenly became a whole load more expensive but at the same time the Government
prohibited the utilities from raising their Peso-denominated tariffs.
The last few years have seen a rather vexed battle of views which
included the International Monetary Fund demanding that the Government allow
tariff increases, the courts subsequently suspending the presidential decree
allowing tariff increases, and the Government telling utilities to ignore the
courts ruling. Hopefully the way is now clear for Edesur and the other
distributors to set tariffs that will allow sufficient reinvestment and provide
an appropriate return to investors.
UK – nuclear program suffers setback
Introduction
In a decision that has thrilled some and disappointed others High
Court Judge Sir
Jeremy Sullivan has ruled the Blair Government’s recent public consultation
on the future of nuclear power “inadequate” and “wrong”. This article briefly
recaps the history of the latest push for nuclear power and examines what
exactly might have been wrong with the consultation process.
Background
Whilst energy demand in the UK is expected to capacity by about
20% by 2015, the contribution of the nuclear stations is likely to decline from
25% of energy demand to about 4% as the aging nuclear power stations are
shutdown. Blair’s Government proposed construction of 10 new nuclear power
stations in the first instance to offset these closures. Not surprisingly the ability
to meet emission reduction obligations featured strongly in Blair’s argument,
along with concerns that coal stations would increase emissions and the UK’s
gas imports come from or through politically unstable regions. Pipes
& Wires #37, #40,
#47
and #52
tell the story in more detail.
The
court’s rulings
Sir Jeremy concluded that the consultation (presumably the
substance) was “seriously flawed” and the process was “manifestly inadequate
and unfair”. He went on to rule that in relation to the nuclear waste issue the
process “was not merely inadequate but also misleading”.
The
Government’s response
The Secretary for Trade & Industry, Alistair
Darling has acknowledged Sir Jeremy’s conclusions, accepted the need for
further consultation, but has also emphasised that the decision to build new
nuclear power stations cannot be delayed beyond the end of 2007.
Aus – Origin plans asset sales
Introduction
News recently emerged that Origin Energy plans to sell off some
assets. This article examines those assets, debates who the likely buyers might
be and examines what the regulatory issues might be.
The proposed asset sales
Origin proposes to sell the
following assets…
·
A 33.3% stake in the 680km SEAGas
Pipeline from the Victorian gas fields to South Australia.
·
A 17% shareholding in Envestra.
·
A 100% stake in Origin Energy Asset Management
Origin’s strategy
Origin is currently a very broad
based business with activities all along the energy value chain. A review of
these activities in 2006 indicated a high level of interest from possible
purchasers. The sale of these activities, which Origin is confident will occur,
will leave Origin with a narrowed focus on the competitive segments of the
energy market - upstream oil and gas,
generation and retail in Australia and in New Zealand via the
shareholding in Contact Energy,
with the most immediate objective being to integrate Sun Retail into its
operations.
Likely buyers
Alinta has publicly indicated that it
will not bid for any of the Origin assets to avoid complicating its own MBO
process (despite having sought regulatory clearance). So who else might be
interested – my guess is that the three major assets are likely to attract
quite different sorts of buyers….
·
The Asset Management business could be bought by a major service
provider – afterall it was rumored that Transfield
may have been interested in Alinta Asset Management.
·
The SEAGas Pipeline stake would probably suit an organisation that
could balance both the regulatory and commercial risks associated with a single
large asset across a portfolio of gas pipelines or similar yield assets. The
limited ability to exert direct operational control and extract efficiencies or
synergies from a 33.3% stake may limit its attractiveness to other pipeline operators,
who may well also be limited by market dominance considerations.
·
The Envestra stake has a very diverse regulatory and commercial
risk profile, and may therefore have wide appeal to an existing yield investor
such as a pension fund or merchant bank that is happy to appoint one or two
directors and receive dividends. The fact that this stake is only 17% may limit
buyer interest especially as the trend has been for utility operators such as
SP AusNet and CKI (who also own 17% of Envestra, which may complicate the
outcome) to divest minority holdings rather than accumulate them.
Possible regulatory issues
The rapid consolidation of the Australian gas transmission sector
over the last 12 months may well restrict buyer interest, and the SEAGas stake
is unlikely to be an exception. Pipes & Wires will comment on this as the
sale process progresses.
Venezuela - nationalisation begins
Introduction
Pipes
& Wires #56 examined newly re-elected president Hugo Chavez’ plans to
nationalise key infrastructure. This article briefly examines the Government’s
buy-out of Electricidad de Caracas from
majority shareholder AES Corporation.
Background
An analysis of Chavez initial
statements suggested that only assets privatised before 1999 would be
nationalised, and in any case Electricidad had never been owned by the
Government. Hence it was not immediately clear whether Electricidad would be affected.
Two subsequent official statements, however, firstly confirmed that the entire
electricity sector would be nationalised, and secondly that appropriate
compensation would be payable.
Nationalising Electricidad
More recently it was confirmed
that Chavez’ Government will fairly compensate owners of nationalised
companies, and last month it signed a deal to purchase AES stake in
Electricidad for US$739m. General opinion is that this compensation is reasonable.
Perhaps the real issue is not so
much whether the Government’s specific offer is reasonable, but whether the
principle of compulsory acquisition is reasonable.
Aus – revoking &
substituting TransGrid’s revenue
Introduction
In
November last year the electricity transmission grid operator in the Australian
state of New South Wales, TransGrid,
applied to the Australian Electricity
Regulator for a revocation and substitution of its revenue cap. TransGrid
contended that this revenue cap contained material errors. This article
examines the original revenue cap, what the alleged errors were and the
corrective action taken.
TransGrid’s original
revenue cap
TransGrid’s
current revenue cap was set by the Australian
Competition & Consumer Commission (ACCC) for the five year period
beginning 1 July 2004. This revenue cap was set at CPI + 2.93%.
The alleged errors of
fact and proposed corrective action
TransGrid
contends that inter alia the ACCC
adopted a debt margin based on data from a specific source that would lead to a
revenue shortfall of $27.56m over the five year control period. In particular
TransGrid is concerned that its submissions to the ACCC on this matter were not
adequately considered because it insisted that the submissions remain
confidential.
TransGrid
had requested that it be allowed to recover the alleged revenue shortfall over
the final two years of the control period by varying the revenue cap to CPI +
4.99%.
The AER’s view on
TransGrid’s allegations
Two
major issues have emerged, and the AER’s views on these issues are as follows…
|
Issue |
AER’s view |
|
The
ACCC’s decision to use a specific source of debt margin data. |
The
ACCC had the discretion to do this under the National Electricity Code. |
|
The
ACCC’s refusal to accept submissions by TransGrid on this matter because of
TransGrid’s insistence that its submissions remain confidential. |
The
ACCC did err by refusing to consider these submissions when it could have
worked toward some mutually agreeable means of making TransGrid’s submissions
available to all interested parties. |
The burning question
– should TransGrid’s revenue cap be re-opened
The
AER’s view is that any correction of TransGrid’s revenue cap will require
proper consideration of TransGrid’s submissions, which deal with such wondrous
things as credit rating yield curves. After considering the submissions the AER
concluded that it would have probably used data from another commercial source
that better fitted the long-term nature of TransGrid’s funding structure.
In
conclusion, the AER allowed TransGrid to increase its revenue by $10.14m for
the year ending 30 June 2008 and by $21.61m for the year ending 30 June 2009.
Phil Sporn builds an electric empire
The early
years
Phil Sporn was born in Austria in 1896, came
to the United States as a nine year old boy and went on to complete a degree in
electrical engineering at Columbia
University in 1917. He then worked for the Consumers Power Company in
Michigan for three years before returning to New York.
Sporn’s
engineering career at American Electric Power
Phil’s 48 year career at AEP began in 1920 as a young electrical engineer
at AEP’s predecessor American Gas & Electric. Around this time AG&E
built its first really long 138kV transmission line to connect a steam turbine
power station at Windsor, Ohio to the town of Canton, Ohio. Phil steadily
climbed the engineering ranks of the AG&E rising to chief engineer by the
mid 1940’s by which time AG&E has built its first 345kV line and had also
steadily vertically integrated by acquiring distribution utilities and building
over 2,000MW of generation.
On
to greater things
Phil was appointed president of AG&E in
May 1947 in addition to being president of its operating companies and
subsidiaries. At this time AG&E’s footprint spread across seven states from
Michigan to Virginia. Phil retired as president at age 65 in 1961 three years
after AG&E changed its name to American Electric Power, and remained a
non-executive director until 1968.
The
later years
In his retirement Phil worked as a
consultant, maintaining an office in downtown Manhattan. It was on his way to
this office that he died of an unexpected heart attack in a mid-town subway
station in January 1978 in the midst of the most ferocious blizzard experienced
by New York up to that time.
Key
achievements
Phil drove many technological advances at
AG&E, among them super-critical boilers, natural-draft cooling towers and
inter-connected transmission grids. He went on to author ten books of which The Integrated
Power System (McGraw Hill, 1950) was regarded as an authoritative work.
Phil was promoted to fellow of the IEEE, the ASME, the ANS and the ASCE,
awarded thirteen honorary degrees and is remembered by memorial professorships
in electrical engineering at MIT and the Rensselear Polytechnic.
Conferences & events
Corrosion, Durability
& Life Extension Techniques – 13th & 14th
March 2007 (Auckland)
The
seminar is an intensive examination of corrosion processes, corrosion
monitoring, corrosion control and corrosion prevention techniques, with
emphasis on extending the life cycle of critical infrastructure
African Utility Week – 28th
May to 1st June 2007 (Capetown).
This
is expected to be the largest utilities conference held in Africa with about
1,300 attendees expected at the International Convention Center.
Any old books in your library ??
I’m looking for old books and
magazine articles on electricity industry and borough council history,
especially books like jubilee celebrations of utilities or back copies of the
old “Live Lines”. If you’ve got any old books like this that you don’t wish to
keep please send them to me.
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