C12 Energy

by Joseph B. Lassiter III and James McQuade

C12 aimed to build not only a company, but an entire industry around carbon capture and sequestration (CCS). "You change the world by building a market, and you build a market by building a profitable company that other people copy," said Dawe, C12 Energy's CEO. "In the energy business, you build a company one project at a time. Moving forward with this first project is where we hope to begin to change the world." Read more

EnerNOC: DemandSMART

by Michael W. Toffel, Kira Fabrizio and Stephanie van Sice

EnerNOC is an energy company with an innovative business model: it serves as an intermediary between electric utilities and electricity users. It contracts with electricity users willing to reduce demand during periods of peak energy demand, and sells this as excess capacity to electric utilities. The company is facing an upheaval in the energy markets due to the dramatic growth in natural gas fracking and the resulting increase in natural gas supply. The case enables students to evaluate the EnerNOC's business model--including its environmental implications--and the potential impact of fracking on its business. The case is accessible to non-specialists, as it provides background on the electric utility industry and the debate about fracking for natural gas. Given the substantial environmental impact of the energy and electricity industries, the case is particularly relevant for courses that focus on energy, the natural environment, and environmental sustainability. Read more

Low-carbon, Indigenous Innovation in China

by Richard H.K. Vietor

For the past seven years or so, the Chinese government has been powering ahead with industrial policies to promote low-carbon energy technologies--wind, solar, electric batteries and vehicles, nuclear power, and even carbon capture and sequestration. In 2009, the government focused broadly on "indigenous innovation," a policy to adopt and then develop technology in dozens of high-tech sectors. As with the earlier focus on renewables, explicit governmental policies and subsidies discriminate against foreign products and foreign companies invested in China. The net effects of these initiatives leave low-carbon energy industries in the United States in the dust. Read more

Enterprise Risk Management at Hydro One (A)

by Anette Mikes

An early adopter of Enterprise Risk Management, energy giant Hydro One anticipated new threats and opportunities in an industry that faced climate change and carbon legislation, the deregulation of electricity markets, and the greater adoption of renewable technologies. CEO Laura Formusa felt Hydro One's risk profile had shifted, to the extent that she had to ask herself-was the strategy tenable? The case provides a rich description of Enterprise Risk Management in action and shows how Hydro One executives arrive at a shared understanding of the risk profile of the company. In the narrative a diverse group of managers (the chief executive, the chief financial officer, the head of the public relations and the chief regulatory officer) voice their views on the risks, collectively bringing a multiple stakeholder perspective to the risk profile. The case challenges students to define the problems and risks that the company faces, given its strategic objectives, its evolving risk profile, and the changing environment. The case also offers a discussion ground for defining the role of the chief risk officer and the relationship between risk management, strategic planning and capital budgeting. Read more

Global Climate Change and BP

by Forest L. Reinhardt and Mikell Hyman

Following the sudden resignation of Sir John Browne, Tony Hayward, BP CEO, must decide how global climate change management will figure into BP's corporate strategy. Climate change management was a major part of BP's strategy under Browne: In 1997 Browne broke from his colleagues, publicly declaring that global climate change was a serious problem and pledging BP to play a significant role in the search for solutions. BP successfully reduced its own carbon emissions, and championed cap-and-trade style regulation over taxation or command-and-control. Despite this progress, as the climate issue gains in political prominence and the Kyoto Protocol nears expiration, Hayward must consider what actions to take in BP's business strategy and in the political arena to manage ongoing climate risk. Read more

AES Honeycomb (A)

by Lynn S. Paine and Sarah C. Mavrinac

Senior managers of the AES Corp., an independent power producer, must decide whether to drop the company's emphasis on corporate values and revamp organizational controls as advised by investment analysts and outside counsel. The company is recovering from an incident of environmental fraud at one of its plants where an innovative decentralized "honeycomb" structure has been put in place. Some believe the structure is too decentralized and that lack of controls contributed to the incident. Read more

Supergrid

by Richard H.K. Vietor

Supergrid is a mammoth wind-power development scheme for Europe, recently proposed by Airtricity. This firm, founded in 1997, is a fast-growing power-development company focused on wind. Already having built about 600 megawatts of wind turbines in Scotland and Ireland, Airtricity has now expanded to the United States. But its "Supergrid" proposal, to build offshore wind turbines with capacity of 30,000 megawatts of power, would change the face of European energy networks, use new technology, and help several European countries meet their Kyoto targets for reducing CO2. The issues are whether a small company like Airtricity has the human and capital resources to pull this off, and whether the U.K., Germany, the Netherlands, and the EU can be made to cooperate on such a project. Read more

The Suzlon Edge

by Richard H.K. Vietor and Juliana Seminerio

With prices of oil, coal and gas at historically high levels, the wind industry had installed more than 20,000 MW of wind energy, representing a $37 billion investment in 2007. Besides high prices, wind energy represented a solution for consumers seeking an energy source that would not add to the problems associated with global climate change. Suzlon Energy Limited (Suzlon), India's largest manufacturer of wind turbines, had evolved from a small family-run business into a global enterprise spanning four continents in just over a decade. But would the costs associated with the aggressive growth policy be too much for a young company to handle? Read more

Suncor in the Oil Sands Industry

by Forest L. Reinhardt and Nazli Uludere

Describes the economics, technology, and politics of the oil sands industry, focusing on one of the industry's leading firms. Oil sands deposits in Alberta represent a potentially vast reserve of hydrocarbons, but the extraction, refining, and transportation challenges are formidable, and the environmental consequences of large-scare oil sands development potentially severe. Encourages students to examine Suncor's strategic positioning and cost structure, and the challenges that the firm's leaders confront as of 2007. Read more

Cape Wind: Offshore Wind Energy in the USA

by Richard Vietor

Cape Wind is an extreme example of NIMBY--not in my backyard syndrome. This is the first offshore wind project planned for the United States, in Nantucket Sound, just south of Cape Cod, Massachusetts. Initially proposed six years ago, in 2001, the wind farm would be visible from Hyannis port and Osterville, two affluent communities. The coastal residents of those towns have led a campaign in Massachusetts and in Congress to thwart the efforts of Cape Wind. This case introduces the global wind industry, the rationale for wind, and then carefully reviews the various issues associated with the project. Read more

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Historical Trajectories and Corporate Competences in Wind Energy

by Geoffrey Jones and Loubna Bouamane

This working paper surveys the business history of the global wind energy turbine industry between the late nineteenth century and the present day. It examines the long-term prominence of firms headquartered in Denmark, the more fluctuating role of U.S.-based firms, and the more recent growth of German, Spanish, Indian, and Chinese firms. While natural resource endowment in wind has not been very significant in explaining the country of origin of leading firms, the existence of rural areas not supplied by grid electricity was an important motivation for early movers in both the U.S. and Denmark. Public policy was the problem rather than the opportunity for wind entrepreneurs before 1980, but beginning with feed-in tariffs and other policy measures taken in California, policy mattered a great deal. However, Danish firms, building on inherited technological capabilities and benefitting from a small-scale and decentralized industrial structure, benefitted more from Californian public policies. The more recent growth of German, Spanish, and Chinese firms reflected both home country subsidies for wind energy and strong local content policies, while successful firms pursued successful strategies to acquire technologies and develop their own capabilities. Read more

Foreign Firms in the Chinese Power Sector: Economic and Environmental Impacts

by F. L. Reinhardt, Fiona Murray and Richard Vietor

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Investment in Pollution Compliance Options: The Case of Georgia Power

by F. L. Reinhardt and M. Edleson

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