Mgmt591 Final Course Project

Communication Process: Atlantic Power Corporation

Final Course Project

MGMT591: Leadership and Organizational Behavior

Professor Darr

Ana Perez ana1025@gmail.com

October 2012

INTRODUCTION

The Energy industry is a very dynamic one and volatile at the same time. In order to be successful in this industry a power producer has to identify the right market according to the type of fuel used to produce the power. There has been a surge of many independent power producers (IPP) that build power plants and sell to either the open market (the power grids) or to a specific customer. When these IPPs are not successful they are usually acquired by a bigger IPP. This was the case I found myself in at Atlantic Power. Atlantic Power is a leading publicly traded, power generation and infrastructure company with a well-diversified portfolio of assets in the United States and Canada. The Company’s power generation projects sell electricity to utilities and other large commercial customers under long-term power purchase agreements, which seek to minimize exposure to changes in commodity prices. Atlantic Power has a combination of natural gas plants, hydro plants, bio-mass plants, and wind projects. The headquarters is in Boston and has satellite offices in Downers Grove, IL and Toronto, CA. I am currently the Operations Controller for the wholly owned plants of the limited partnership of the company. I am accountable for the execution of the monthly accounting close of the legal entities, managing the internal controls and financial audits, and delivering certain financial statements to the Corporate Controller in the Boston office for further consolidation and to internal management for review of operational results.

On November 6, 2011 Atlantic Power Corporation acquired the Partnership plants from Capital Power Income LP, where I was formerly employed at. In fact I started my career with the Partnership when the company was Primary Energy then sold to...