Bay Area Economic Forum. Lightning Strikes Twice: California Faces the Real Risk of a Second Power Crisis. Taking the Right Steps to Ensure a Powerful Future. August 2004. Paper, 28 pages.
A physical plant that normally operates continuously to take all or part of the minimum load of a system and that consequently generates electricity at an essentially constant rate
The interconnected operations service that provides the needed capacity and energy to transmission customers to replace the loss of generation and to cover the portion of demand that exceeds generation supplies for more than a short period
Costs of new transmission or generation (sometimes both) that electric utilities can "avoid" by purchasing from other sources, managing demand, conservation
The measure of time that a generating unit, transmission line or other facility is capable of providing service, whether the unit, line or facility is in service (expressed as a percent available for the time under consideration)
