Writing
Distribution grid mechanics, utility decision-making, and regulatory process variance — worked through with primary sources, not summarized from someone else's research.
Capacity values
the units they’re in, the load conditions they were tested under, what they’re measuring.
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What goes into a substation capacity figure
How a substation capacity number gets built from feeders that update on different schedules.
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Reading negative capacity values
Why more than a quarter of PSE&G's circuits show negative available capacity.
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Electrification headroom vs EV headroom
Why the same ConEd feeder can carry different capacity numbers for EV load and building electrification.
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Megavolt-ampere to megawatt conversion
Why a hosting capacity value labeled in MVA isn't automatically 10% lower once converted to MW.
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Hosting capacity maps vs distribution load serving capacity maps
Why hosting capacity numbers for the same equipment are derived from opposite conditions.
Planning conventions
the margin of capacity held back for equipment failure, and interconnection
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ConEd queue records
What ConEd’s shared queue numbers represent.
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Developer alternatives if capacity is unavailable
When capacity is unavailable, developers can turn to storage, behind-the-meter generation, or waiting.
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N-1 and N-2 contingencies
How utilities size equipment to survive losing a transformer, and how that loss is priced in.
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Transformer emergency ratings, LTE and STE loading
How long a transformer can run above its normal rating before the overload becomes a cost to the equipment's lifespan.
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Distribution interconnection queues
How distribution interconnection backlog differs from transmission-level.
Rates and Disclosure
Background on how electric utility data is structured and regulated
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Disclosure rules vs data quality
A comparison of how California, New York, and New Jersey require utilities to disclose hosting capacity data.
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Utility capital plans for capacity upgrades
How rate cases move a capacity constraint from a utility's load forecast into a funded infrastructure project.
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Rate case docket numbers
How to find and read a rate case docket.
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Binding tariffs and voluntary hosting capacity maps
The difference in legal weight between a tariff, a rate case outcome, and a utility's voluntary hosting capacity map.
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NEMA, IEEE, UL, and ANSI
What these standards actually require and their legal weight.
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Vertically integrated investor owned utilities vs co-ops
How ownership structure determines how much a utility answers to its state regulator.
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Hosting capacity disclosure mandates
History of hosting-capacity disclosure requirements in California, Illinois, and Minnesota.
Grid equipment
The physical equipment affecting a site’s power capacity.
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How equipment ratings are used to determine capacity
Thermal limits and contingency margin that determine capacity ceilings.
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Single-phase, two-phase, and three-phase feeders
How feeder-level capacity numbers can hide phase imbalance.
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Pole top, pad mounted transformers
The layers of equipment between a substation and the transformer that serves a building.
Data pipelines
How raw utility exports become a time series, telling a real trend from noise, and handling a correction without quietly rewriting history.
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Margin of error and confidence intervals
How many snapshots of a transformer's capacity are enough to tell a step change from a trend.
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Immutable historical records, slowly changing dimension
Why overwriting a corrected data point erases information that used to be true.
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Incident response and status page design
How AWS and the EIA each handle telling customers whether a fix is retroactive.