viernes, diciembre 30, 2005

Jack Casazza Recommendation: Cooperate and Coordinate Parte 3

The following comment has been posted on EnergyPulse, under Professor Ferdinand E. Banks article A Few More Unfriendly Comments on Electric Deregulation.

This is my second response. Now I will offer two humble comments about Mr. Jack Casazza's suggestions and the world context.

1) In general terms, Jack Casazza suggests repairing Space B (faulty deregulation) with coordination agreements to assure that coordination of the system to produce long and short run minimum costs. To do that I have found that the best signal to private agents is that customer's interruptions should be compensated under any circumstance. Behind that, by Coase's Theorem, the electricity market is borne, since customers supply security needs now vary widely under each customer class. If that means bridging the gap between the insurance industry and the power industry, then it should be done.

2) If I understand correctly, Jack is concentrating on either/or thinking (concentrate on the system, that the results will follow). As comment 1 introduces important changes to the market, repairs to the market are needed as well. As Toyota showed in the automobile industry, in the power industry we should go for increase quality (and reliability) and reduced costs. To do that we need both efficient markets (no regulator can represent the customer better than himself – shout for no price control) and outstanding systems planning and operation. I suggest we go for both. I believe that calls for the development of true deregulation, as outlined in Space D above, without going into Space C. If a coordination agreement is to be done, do it on both counts, to reduce as much as possible the value destruction to the economy and society.

jueves, diciembre 29, 2005

Jack Casazza Recommendation: Cooperate and Coordinate Parte 2

J.A. Casazza, President American Education Institute
Former Utility Executive
IEEE Life Fellow
Recipient of IEEE's Herman Halperin Award and Citation of Honor
Recipient of CIGRE Philip Sporn Award for Development of Electric Power Systems

Jack no es un simple académico; es un experto en apagones generales.
Es también el líder de PEST - POWER ENGINEERS SUPPORTING TRUTH.

On 12/29/05, Bernardo Castellanos wrote:

Estimados Todos

Hay que felicitar a Jose Antonio por su persistencia, consistencia y tenacidad en promover su idea de desregulacion del mercado minorista. En su empeño ha establecido contactos con autoridades academicas del sector electrico como los profesores Banks y Cassaza. El email mas abajo escrito por el profesor cassaza no tiene desperdicios y deberia servir de punto de reflexion con miras hacia el futuro del sector electrico

Saludos

Bernardo

On 12/29/05, Jack Casazza wrote:

Dear Jose Antonio...

Ver Jack Casazza Recommendation: Cooperate and Coordinate

Jack Casazza Recommendation: Cooperate and Coordinate

Mr. Jack Casazza,
President
American Education Institute
Distinguished Fellow of the IEEE

Thank you very much Jack for your very valuable, although free, contribution and advice. I am honored for the pleasure of your remarks, which I believe will be taken very well by all of the stakeholders of the power sector of the Dominican Republic and the world.

While I plan to use them for other contexts, the initial and most relevant context is a message, about the deregulation that has taken place here, to all of the power sector agents in the Dominican Republic, its government officials, the multilateral institutions that are aiding us, and our private sector representatives.

I can tell you first hand that our faulty deregulation has made more damage than many other places, because of the lack of institutions that has kept the vicious circle of financial unsustainability alive. The damage here has led to 20 to 25% rotating blackouts, basically by the widespread misunderstanding of many experts that the electric power sector ends at the customer's meters.

Under an IMF program, the Dominican government bought the idea from an expert economist contracted by the World Bank (WB), that (suggested incorrectly) financial sustainability meant to ration customers according to how much is collected from the circuits, without suggesting (I believe) to compensate paying customers. The lack of compensation has distorted even more the situation, increasing unnecessarily the need for subsidies in the year 2005 from 350 million dollars programmed to near 600 million dollars executed. A much stronger vicious circle underlies the situation now.

The government has scheduled over 800 million dollars for subsidies in 2006, which the WB and the IMF have not accepted. Starting before 2005, I advised freely in many occasions that paying customers should be compensated to complete the necessary feedback to turn the vicious circle into a virtuous circle. I believe that the value destruction in our economy is the largest per capita in the world, the power infrastructure cost us more than two or three times what it should cost. Most of the value destruction is not captured by any party, as it becomes lost food and materials, a lot of noise, and smoke, and inefficiently burnt fuels, etc., because of the lack of coordination of un-programmed rotating blackouts.

The most important aspect of coordination is to balance risk of system crashes and the cost to the economy in a well designed system. As a system planner, at the beginning of the 80s, I learned first hand from Puerto Rican planners, which had made a terrible mistake of installing 2 oversized units, how to use probability theory (LOLP ideas) to plan the expansion of generation and transmission system. Later at the end of the 80s I made an expansion plan myself. I have been recently synthesizing that idea as supply side risk management.

As you know perfectly well, the same basic ideas apply to power system operation, using contingency planning to avoid risk of system crashes. A robustly designed system has no substitute. However, deregulation investor looking to gain market power was moved to develop oversize units. For example we have a 300 MW unit for a system operating at 1,200 MW after 25% "demand management." Total lack of coordination has increases as a result.

Recently the Dominican government had a plan to develop 2, 1 x 600 MW coal based remote sites. After complains I made, they change to 2, 2 x 300 MW coal based remote sites. I believe they are still too large for our system, but no probabilistic minimum cost simulations have been made by the government office in charge.

In our country we use incremental cost for generation dispatch (short run marginal energy cost). However, oversized units, and many transmission restrictions, and very high costs generating units have made dispatch very inefficient. In addition, the lack of short run marginal supply security cost, I believe, is the reason why gaming the market was and is so easy, here, and everywhere. Professor Schweppe recommended that, but as far I know nobody took it into account.

We have an institution named the "Coordinating Body (CB)," which is not doing at the right level the coordinating and cooperating job it should be doing. It was borne with a contract signed by all market agents, under private decision making which the regulator may overturn. I was on the board of director of the initial CB administration, but were unable to sell my cooperation and coordination suggestions most of the time.

Today the CB is controlled by the government and its politics, although the agents as contractual parties are free to take your bright suggestions an amend it. Although I may be wrong, I perceive that the new foreign managers of the CB, instead of being the leaders, as the first foreign managers try to, are following and "respecting" the regulations, which needs a lot of updating. I hope the agents and the government takes your wise advice and greatly reduces the harm done by the lack of coordination and cooperation.

On September 2004, I decided to become an Interdependent Consultant on Electricity. The reason of being "interdependent" is, as Steven R. Covey says, because interdependence is much more valuable than independence. Interdependence is systemic, not based on simple cause and effects, just like coordination and cooperation are. I have been available, but have not landed one consulting job yet from the CB.

I was contracted on 1996 to offer a solution to the power sector problems of the Dominican Republic. My conclusion was that electricity could be transformed into a business just like most businesses (wholesale, retail, customers), and that Dominicans had the opportunity to become leaders on underdeveloped countries on retail marketers of electricity. In 1998, I identified the emergence of a vibrant retail marketing cluster. This year I made the following presentation to the PLMA, which can turn around the electricity business of the country, by making it very reliable with the complement of demand side risk management to the supply side risk management.

I completely understand your message to concentrate on the power system, but I tell you that I am actually doing a balance effort on both counts. A true deregulation as I am suggesting takes care entirely of the coordination and cooperation difficulties of faulty deregulation. Retailers become in essence very knowledgeable customers that participate in both the wholesale and retail markets, for the long run (centered on energy efficiency) and short run (centered on demand response). The T&D Companies concentrate their effort with the help of CB on the implementation of the new regulations, for planning and operating the system.



Thank you again,

José Antonio

CC: Power system agents
Government of the Dominican Republic
Multilateral institutions
Private sector representatives

On 12/29/05, Jack Casazza wrote:



Dear Jose Antonio,

I have been reading the discussions between you, Prof. Banks and others and did not comment previously because I did not have anything to add. I thought perhaps I could be helpful at this time by providing a few comments, as follows:

- The restructuring and deregulation of the electric power industry was a serious mistake in the USA and in many countries, harming the general public.

- Competition has produced some benefits, particularly in the improvement in the operation of generation plants, but caused a severe decline in the coordination needed between the participants in the planning, design and operation of the generation and transmission systems of electric power grids. The reduction in the number of companies involved can produce some future savings.

- Generation dispatch is based on quoted prices rather that incremental production costs, increasing total production costs.

- Present and long range costs have been increased significantly since each company made decisions based on its own profits and not what was best for the overall grid in the long run, i.e., the overall public interest. (In the USA past studies have shown that the savings from coordination exceeded $20 billion a year before restructuring. Many of these prior benefits have been lost.)

- In most cases the changes that have been made in the industry structure and procedures cannot be undone, so we have to proceed by trying to use what is good from restructuring and removing or correcting the many harmful things that have resulted.

- I believe the greatest harm has been the loss of cooperation and coordination between those involved in the power industry. A way to correct this learned from the past is through "coordination contracts" signed by the participating companies that provide for the planning, design and operation to be performed as if they constituted a single company. In such contracts the long range lowest total cost solution and lowest cost operation procedures were selected even if it meant that one company had to spend extra funds or give up some profits, as long as it resulted in a lower overall cost or was necessary to preserve reliability, even if in another system. These contracts provided for the compensation of a company for its extra costs or profits foregone plus a share of the overall benefits resulting to the public. (I have negotiated such contracts as far back as 50 years ago.)

There is much more analysis needed, but perhaps the comments above will get you thinking about the power system, not the markets.

Best regards,

Jack Casazza

Note to others receiving this message. Please feel free to quote or use it as you wish.

Jack Casazza

Retail Market Deregulation Dialogue on EnergyPulse Part 4

I have made an updated remmark to Mr. Jack Ellis comments to Free All Wisconsin Utilities to Make Money Helping Customer's Save Energy.

A couple of thoughts regarding this article and the comments that followed:

First, I think it's fine for both utilities and third parties to be allowed to provide energy efficiency and demand response services.

However, there ought to be a level playing field. Utilities should not be guaranteed a return on their investments. Instead, they should be required to recover any investments they make in the same way an unregulated firm would. Competition among a mix of unregulated suppliers and regulated utilities will ensure a continual flow of new ideas and technologies, whereas granting utilities yet another de-facto monopoly will stifle innovation and slow the pace of advances in this area.

I normally dislike subsidies, especially when they are disguised as "incentives". However, until retail customers are exposed to wholesale prices in ways that provide the market-based signals many of us advocate, modest subsidies that help focus customers on reducing consumption when prices indicate an impending short-term supply shortage are appropriate.

Wholesale market prices need to reflect all costs associated with supply. In some RTOs, most notably PJM, generators receive hundreds of millions of dollars in payments outside the formal auction mechanism to compensate them for startup, no-load, lost opportunity and other, similar costs. These need to be incorporated in generator bids rather than being paid "under the table".

Finally, I respectfully demand to have the last word on this subject :)


I disagree with Jack on letting a combination of regulated utilities (monopolies) and third parties (competitive) to provide energy efficiency (EE) and demand response (DR) services. Those EE and DR services are random and require a long term commitment on the part of competitive service providers. There are boom years where those services will not be needed, making it very unfair competition for third parties. Very bad experience in other countries where incumbent utilities or their "deregulated" arms, "competed" with third parties have been very negative for third parties.

I suggest that since you dislike subsidies, as I also do, to eliminate alltogether price controls, leading to true deregulation of the electric market. In that sense, please take a look at the new comments I made on true deregulation to the article A Few More Unfriendly Comments on Electric Deregulation, in response to Mr. Martin-Giraldo remmarks.

José Antonio Vanderhorst-Silverio, PhD
Interdependent Consultant on Electricity
Grupo Millennium Hispaniola
Dominican Republic

miércoles, diciembre 28, 2005

IMF insists on eliminating subsidies


According to the IMF the Dominican government has two options to compensate for the resources that it will lose when it abolishes the exchange commission tax on dollars used to import anything into the Dominican Republic: one is to continue collecting the tax all year long, and the second is to eliminate the subsidies on propane and electricity.
A 'source' close to the government has told El Caribe that the IMF thinks that the government has to take a more "drastic" approach to the question of subsidies and that it should seriously think about ending them altogether. The source said that with the postponement of DR-CAFTA, the government has six months to keep up the exchange commission tax and obtain the finances it needs to balance out its income, but the source also questions what will happen when the time comes to enter the treaty. The source added that the government will have to ! find some way to get the money, and it is looking at cutting out the subsidies as one way to do it. While the IMF has not formally asked the Dominican Republic to eliminate the subsidies, it is obvious to the source that this will be a major theme for discussion this coming year. One of the goals set out by the IMF Stand-by agreement is the reduction of the electricity sector deficit, which is expected to reach US$800 million or RD$27.2 billion in 2006. However, this past Monday, CDEEE administrator Radhames Segura told reporters that the government had no plans to remove the subsidy. He pointed out that the subsidy was, indeed, a very important issue for the government, especially in view of the fact that what was originally set as a US$350 million subsidy, turned into a UD$502.3 million subsidy.

martes, diciembre 27, 2005

Retail Market Deregulation Dialogue on EnergyPulse Part 3

An updated comment to Free All Wisconsin Utilities to Make Money Helping Customer's Save Energy.

I have added new comments on the true deregulation to A Few More Unfriendly Comments on Electric Deregulation. One of them is in response to Mr. Martin-Giraldo is centered on:

I believe there has been a big misunderstanding of Fred C. Schweppe proposal. Trying to clarify his proposal, lets consider four general structures for the electric business: A) a traditional vertical integrated utility; B) a faulty deregulation or re-regulation that keeps a largely irresponsive and obsolete utility business model; C) Fred C. Schweppe "Regulated Spot Price Based Energy Marketplace" with homeostatic utility controls, where the utility is the only middleman; and D) a true deregulated electricity market, with retailers innovative business models, without price controls, a new value chain (generator, retailer & customer), while re-regulating the wires monopoly.

While agreeing with Harry and Kevin on the need to do without subsidies or regulation, I urge Don specially to look at it. There is no longer a need to have retail price control regulation. The theory and practice is available to support the development of innovations in retail marketing of electricity.

Some Friendly Comments on True Electric Deregulation Part 4

Thank you very much Mr. Martín-Giraldo for your timely comments.

I agree completely that Fred C. Schweppe supported regulation, but a very distinct kind of regulation, which I believe is completely unnecessary today. Experience with faulty deregulation, experience with regulation, the development of new technologies, and additional insights into electric business, suggest serious consideration to the development of a "true" deregulated electric marketplace. The comments that follow are in addition to my earlier article on An Alternative Business Case for Demand Response, as well as my comments dispersed on EnergyPulse.

I believe there has been a big misunderstanding of Fred C. Schweppe proposal. Trying to clarify his proposal, lets consider four general structures for the electric business: A) a traditional vertical integrated utility; B) a faulty deregulation or re-regulation that keeps a largely irresponsive and obsolete utility business model; C) Fred C. Schweppe "Regulated Spot Price Based Energy Marketplace" with homeostatic utility controls, where the utility is the only middleman; and D) a true deregulated electricity market, with retailers innovative business models, without price controls, a new value chain (generator, retailer & customer), while re-regulating the wires monopoly.

As you will see, moving from the regulated Space A to the regulated Space C involves a very large undertaking, while moving from Space C to Space to D no such a large one. The regulated (Space C: see page 11 of Spot Pricing of Electricity) "energy marketplace involves the utility and its customers operating as partners… Utility implementation concerns include real-time calculation/prediction of hourly spot prices, metering-communication-billing, and system control center operation using the new control signal called price… customers who choose to exploit the energy marketplace potentials must implement the appropriate response systems (today demand response), which could range from simple manual response to sophisticated digital controls."

That explains why on page 123, Schweppe, et al, conclude "that there are many similarities between the regulated energy market place… and the deregulated system." That also explains very clearly the shortcomings ( i.e. price spikes) of, Space B, faulty deregulation.

In addition, on page xvii of Spot Pricing of Electricity, Fred C. Schweppe (et al) understood that "there is a need for fundamental changes in the way society views electric energy... In general terms: …the spot price based energy marketplace involves a variety of utility-customer transactions… These transactions may include customers selling to, as well as buying from, the utility." Read "fundamental changes" not cosmetic changes in the utilities business models.

On page xviii, they add "A spot price based energy marketplace has many benefits for both the electric utility and its customers. These benefits include improvements in operating efficiency, reductions in needed capital investments, and customer options on the type of (reliability) of electricity to be bought. A spot price based energy marketplace is a win-win situation for both the regulated utility and its customers. The customer's lifestyles improve because the customers are receiving more service from the use of electric energy per dollar spent. The utility has a more controllable, less uncertain world in which to operate." That is exactly the opposite of what has been happening, by leaving the customer out in the re-regulation efforts. Demand response will change that.

My hypothesis is that time and reality are given us the opportunity to bypass Space C and go directly to Space D. It does not make any sense today to develop a Regulated Spot Price Based Energy Marketplace. It does not make any sense either to stay at Space A. Maybe my contribution, if there is one, is recognizing that a very simple restructuring, which keeps the wires utility out of the competitive business, creates an opportunity for retail marketers to develop the Deregulated Spot Price Based Energy Marketplace. That I suggest is the required change in firm organization that goes satisfies the control scheme, on the need to develop the corresponding innovative business models.

I add my response to your well documented comments with the dedication of the book "Spot Pricing of Electricity," that says: "Fred created spot pricing and proved, again, that "The forecast is always wrong!" (Unnumbered page, placed on what should be page v).

Schweppe was a feedback genious, which understood (see page 7) that "In the energy marketplace, there is a closed-loop feedback between the utility and its customers. The whole electric power system (generation, transmission, distribution, and customers) is controlled and operated in an integrated fashion, without removing the customers' freedom of choice. This is made possible by the diversity in costumer's characteristics, desires and needs… The benefits of well-designed, real time, utility customer feedback are clear, or will be after reading this book." My hypothesis of "true" deregulation is centered on those perceptions of the customers, which introduce the need for retail marketing and retail competition, which, unfortunately, is the "true" deregulation that the late Fred C. Schweepe had no time to see.

Now I like to respond some of your comments:

· To me is important to remark that the origins of restructuring are not in the thought of Schweppe, although many people could think so nowadays.

My response:

I believe that sufficient time has past to assign the proper credits, which I am trying to integrate in a true deregulation of electricity. However, I firmly believe that the theory and practice of restructuring of electricity originated with Fred C. Schweppe leadership. The book "Spot Pricing of Electricity" is the place to respond to Charles Maurice de Tayllerand-Périgord, argument: "When something become dark to you, go to the origins."

I believe that Schweppe proposed a "real" restructuring, when he said "New directions for the utility industry are being sought by many interested parties in the government, the private sector, and the universities. One such direction has been widespread interest in utility-customer cooperation through innovative rates characterized by broader options and better use of information on utility costs and customer needs. The goal of this book is to provide a theoretically sound, yet practical foundation for the implementation of utility-customer transactions based on today's needs. Our goal is to meet four criteria:

  1. "Freedom of Choice: provide customers with options on the cost and reliability of supply and how they choose to use electric energy."
  2. Economic Efficiency: Motivate customers to adjust their own electric energy usage patterns to match utility marginal costs.
  3. Equity: Reduce customer cross-subsidies…
  4. Utility Control, Operation and planning: Consider the engineering requirements for controlling, operating and planning an electric power system."
Commenting the criteria in reverse order:

Item 4: is what Mr. Jack Casazza, yourself, myself, and others have been asking all along, which were forgotten in the "deregulation" frenzy.

Item 3: had a note: "there are other definitions of equity." I characterize a supply security (or quality) cross-subsidy, just to cross-subsidize, for example, the computer manufacturer, as Thomas Tanton has rightly pointed out. Average rates to customer classes forbid that.

Item 2: motivation underscores the need for retail marketing, which utility minded people find unnecessary. I have to admit that Mr. Schweppe didn't got that far.

Item 1: This is the key element on the differentiation of customers. Technology for a complete market is already here. In the End-State (which is within the next five years) price controls become completely unnecessary, given my article and the comments have made in the EnergyPulse discussions.

Your comment:

  • Why?. Please pay attention to the first sentence between parenthesis: "Which we do advocate". Schweppe advocated regulation. By extension, this means there is not necessarily a relationship between "deregulation" and "demand response", thus "demand response" could take place in a restructured or non-restructured environment.
My response:

While the words seem correct, the intent is not. As was seeing from my first response, Fred C. Schweppe advocated a much more different regulation than the re-regulation that California experimented. In fact, Schwepe had suggested very big restructuring effort, with the following 4 above goals. Had they follow Fred C. Schweppe spot pricing "regulation" model; the experiment would have been completely successful. That is why you need to add the sentence "The reader might be surprised to learn that the trip from regulation to deregulation need not be very long…"

Your comment:

  • In my opinion it is more easy "demand response", (or load management, demand side management, market transformation or whatever name adopted along last 30 years you want to call it), takes place in a regulated environment and carried out by a vertical integrated utility under the once very popular IRP (Integrated Resource Planning.)
My response:


I suggest you to read my response to Bob Lieberman in what I believe is
The Birth of the Global Electric Retailer.


Best regards,

José Antonio Vanderhorst-Silverio, PhD



On 12/27/05, Power Encounter <powerencounter@gmail.com> wrote:
Dear Mr. Vanderhorst-Silverio,
I have the following comments to do:

  1. Fred Schewppe supported regulation. In Chapter 5. "A Possible Future: Deregulation", page 111 of the book "Spot Pricing of Electricity" by Fred C. Schweppe, Michael C. Caramanis, Richard D. Tabors and Roger E. Bohn (Kluwer Academic Publishers. 1988 ISBN 0-89838-260-2), we can read: "This chapter shows how the establishment of a spot price based energy marketplace in a regulated environment (which we do advocate) can evolve towards or into a deregulated system. The reader may be surprised to learn that the trip from regulation to deregulation need not be very long (although it may be bumpy)." To me is important to remark that the origins of restructuring are not in the thought of Schweppe, although many people could think so nowadays. Why?. Please pay attention to the first sentence between parenthesis: "Which we do advocate". Schweppe advocated regulation. By extension, this means there is not necessarily a relationship between "deregulation" and "demand response", thus "demand response" could take place in a restructured or non-restructured environment. In my opinion it is more easy "demand response", (or load management, demand side management, market transformation or whatever name adopted along last 30 years you want to call it), takes place in a regulated environment and carried out by a vertical integrated utility under the once very popular IRP (Integrated Resource Planning.).

  2. Since its inception, the control scheme of a power system is hierarchical. Id est: a vertical one. This vertical control scheme observes a time scale which comply with the power system states: electromagnetic, transient, and steady states, and short term and long term planning. And this vertical scheme control obeys the organization of a vertical integrated utility as well. With restructuring and unbundling the utility lost verticality and become horizontal. To enlarge my view in this point it could be interesting for instance you pay a view to the Economics book "Markets and Hierarchies: Analysis and Antitrust Implications", by Oliver E. Williamson, Free Press. 1983 ISBN: 0-02934-780-7). There has been a change in the firm organisation, but there has NOT been the corresponding change in the control scheme. Now, the point here is whether the classical control scheme affords horizontal utilities. The facts seem to tell no. Then, how to add to the present vertical control scheme a new full horizontal one such the required by "demand response" without provoking clashing?. Neither the multi-agent systems technology is still ready, nor the Agent-based Computational Economics has been developed. See http://www.econ.iastate.edu/tesfatsi/aelect.htm .

  3. In present times I remember a quote of Charles Maurice de Tayllerand-Périgord, that argued French politician who once said: "When something become dark to you, go to the origins".

Posted in Energy Pulse.
Sincerely yours
J Martín-Giraldo


On 12/24/05, José Antonio Vanderhorst-Silverio, PhD <mailto:vanderhorstsr@gmail.com> wrote:

Estimado Dr. Martín-Giráldo,

Perdone mi insistencia sobre mi propuesta de un Mercado eléctrico liberalizado verdadero, con el cual su contribución espero. Cambio al inglés ahora.

Professor Ferdinand E. Banks wrote a timely article in EnergyPulse entitled A Few More Unfriendly Comments on Electric Deregulation, to which I made an initial comment and posed some questions regarding my hipothesis of a true electric deregulation. Prof. Banks has said, among other things that: "Almost as important, I think that the arguments of Jack Casazza, and the people at the Carnegie Mellon Electricity Industry Center are unbeatable. They also have all the evidence on their side, which helps. (And here I can suggest examining the blog of Jesus M. Martin-Giraldo.) I certainly respect the knowledge and interest of Vanderhorst-Silverio in this matter, and I hope that his ideas receive a wide circulation, but in terms of the economic theory that I study and teach, I would really be surprised if I were able to endorse those suggesting that there is an acceptable deregulation agenda out there somewhere if only we take the time to find it. "


Thanking Prof. Banks for his suggestion that my ideas receive a wide circulation, I responded in part as follows:

"Recently, I have sent an email to Mr. Casazza, and have gone to Jesus M. Martin-Giraldo, Power Encounters blog, where I posted comments in Spanish about 1) a misunderstanding of Fred C Schweppe's Homeostatic Utility Control in the literature review he posted; 2) my blog in which I have posted well over 900 notes, most of them in Spanish, related to what I believe is my meaningful aim of true deregulation (which started on 1995); and 3) CME Industry Center (CMEIC) admission of incomplete (=faulty) deregulation and lack of physical demand side risk management, and referring him to the link of my comments under the article "Strategic Perspectives on Utility Enterprise Solutions," by Warren Causey on EnergyPulse."

"I have received no reply from them yet. I agree that under the old paradigm, CMEIC and Mr. Casazza are unbeatable, because they are based on "facts" of the faulty deregulation. However, I humbly think that under COE hypothesis many of the arguments just don't hold. However, I received a kind reply from Dr. Alfred E. Kahn, but I am not allowed to forward it yet (the email has some legalese at the bottom)."

"I will send all of them, including the CMEIC the link of this article to see if they may have answers to the questions I asked you. "

Deseándole una feliz Navidad y esperando sus comentarios, bien sea en su bitácora digital, en EnergyPulse o por esta misma vía.

Muy cordialmente,

José Antonio Vanderhorst-Silverio, PhD

Interdependent Consultant on Electricity

BS ´68, MS ´71 & PhD ´72, all from Cornell University

Valued IEEE Member for 35 Years

javs@ieee.org

Research and practice areas, and interests: systems architecture, systems thinking, retail marketing, customer orientation, information systems requirements and design, market rules, contract assistance.

sábado, diciembre 24, 2005

Eficiencia Energética: Opción de Menor Costo de Electricidad

De acuerdo a la Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) de los Estados Unidos la eficiencia energética salía a 3 centavos de dólar el kilovatio-hora en el año 2002. No cabe duda que es el medio idóneo para reducir los costos de electricidad para la economía dominicana. El tiempo para lograr los beneficios es también mucho menor. ¿Porqué insisten en invertir en centrales a carbón, si tenemos una opción de mucho menor costo? En el 2006 la factibilidad es mucho mejor, dado los precios relativos de los combustibles eran mucho menores.Miren a la lámina 5 de la siguiente presentación.

Some Friendly Comments on True Electric Deregulation Part 3

Esta es la parte común de las comunicaciones que envié a los expertos en electridad que mencioné en la respuesta al Profesor Banks.

Professor Ferdinand E. Banks wrote a timely article in EnergyPulse entitled A Few More Unfriendly Comments on Electric Deregulation, to which I made an initial comment and posed some questions regarding my hipothesis of a true electric deregulation. Prof. Banks has said, among other things that:


Almost as important, I think that the arguments of Jack Casazza, and the people at the Carnegie Mellon Electricity Industry Center are unbeatable.They also have all the evidence on their side, which helps. (And here I can suggest examining the blog of Jesus M. Martin-Giraldo.) I certainly respect the knowledge and interest of Vanderhorst-Silverio in this matter, and I hope that his ideas receive a wide circulation, but in terms of the economic theory that I study and teach, I would really be surprised if I were able to endorse those suggesting that there is an acceptable deregulation agenda out there somewhere if only we take the time to find it.

Thanking Prof. Banks for his suggestion that my ideas receive a wide circulation, I responded in part as follows:

Recently, I have sent an email to Mr. Casazza, and have gone to Jesus M. Martin-Giraldo, Power Encounters blog, where I posted comments in Spanish about 1) a misunderstanding of Fred C Schweppe's Homeostatic Utility Control in the literature review he posted; 2) my blog in which I have posted well over 900 notes, most of them in Spanish, related to what I believe is my meaningful aim of true deregulation (which started on 1995); and 3) CME Industry Center (CMEIC) admission of incomplete (=faulty) deregulation and lack of physical demand side risk management, and referring him to the link of my comments under the article "Strategic Perspectives on Utility Enterprise Solutions," by Warren Causey on EnergyPulse.

I have received no reply from them yet. I agree that under the old paradigm, CMEIC and Mr. Casazza are unbeatable, because they are based on "facts" of the faulty deregulation. However, I humbly think taht under COE hypothesis many of the arguments just don't hold. However, I received a kind reply from Dr. Alfred E. Kahn, but I am not allowed to forward it yet (the email has some legalese at the bottom).

I will send all of them, including the CMEIC the link of this article to see if
they may have answers to the questions I asked you.

Some Friendly Comments on True Electric Deregulation Part 2

Re: Felicidades

Muchas felicidades a ti Luis también en Noche Buena y Navidad y tu linda familia dominco-mexicana. Igualmente, muchas felicidades también a todos los copiados.

Espero que el año que viene los dominicanos dejemos de lado las diferencias y adoptemos un visión compartida del sector eléctrico, que sirva tanto para las empresas y las oficinas públicas, como para las residencias.

Muy cariñosamente,

José Antonio


On 12/24/05, Luis H. Arthur. S. <luarthur@verizon.net.do> wrote:
Desde mi exilio con luz, les deseo a todos una feliz Noche Buena y Navidad, y un ano prospero en realizaciones personales y nacionales, para Uds. todos y sus familiares.
Nos volveremos ver si Dios Quiere, por el tiempo que el decida.
Luis

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--
José Antonio Vanderhorst-Silverio, PhDInterdependent Consultant on ElectricityBS ´68, MS ´71 & PhD ´72, all from Cornell UniversityValued IEEE Member for 35 mailto:Years.javs@ieee.orgResearchand practice areas, and interests: systems architecture, systems thinking, retail marketing, customer orientation, information systems requirements and design, market rules, contract assistance.

Some Friendly Comments on True Electric Deregulation Part 2

Thanks Prof. Banks for your humble response.

I certainly can only claim to know about deregulation in the Dominican Republic myself, which is one of the worst cases in the world. Our educational system is lousy, and our power system has been expensive and unreliable for many years. Our power sector is right now is under systemic collapse, totally unsustainable, and kept going only on very large, and unsustainable subsidies and 20-25% rotating interruptions ordered by the World Bank and the IMF. Most customers with economic capacity have backup systems. However, I am not an anti-deregulation ideologist, because I firmly believe that our power sector can be turned around with true deregulation, as can be inferred from my presentation at the Spring 2005 Peak Load Management Alliance Conference.

Recently, I have sent an email to Mr. Casazza, and have gone to Jesus M. Martin-Giraldo, Power Encounters blog, where I posted comments in Spanish about 1) a misunderstanding of Fred C Schweppe's Homeostatic Utility Control in the literature review he posted; 2) my blog in which I have posted well over 900 notes, most of them in Spanish, related to what I believe is my meaningful aim of true deregulation (which started on 1995); and 3) CME Industry Center (CMEIC) admission of incomplete (=faulty) deregulation and lack of physical demand side risk management, and referring him to the link of my comments under the article "Strategic Perspectives on Utility Enterprise Solutions," by Warren Causey on EnergyPulse.

I have received no reply from them yet. I agree that under the old paradigm, CMEIC and Mr. Casazza are unbeatable, because they are based on "facts" of the faulty deregulation. However, I humbly think taht under COE hypothesis many of the arguments just don't hold. However, I received a kind reply from Dr. Alfred E. Kahn, but I am not allowed to forward it yet (the email has some legalese at the bottom).

I will send all of them, including the CMEIC the link of this article to see if they may have answers to the questions I asked you.

Best regards,

José Antonio

Some Friendly Comments on True Electric Deregulation

viernes, diciembre 23, 2005

Some Friendly Comments on True Electric Deregulation

Profesor Ferdinand Banks ha escrito el artículo A Few More Unfriendly Comments on Electric Deregulation en EnergyPulse que yo he aprovechado para defender mi hipótesis de una liberación verdadera del sector eléctrico. Esto es lo que le escribí:

Thank you, Professor Banks, for outlining the dark side of power sector restructuring (faulty deregulation). As I told you before, I have auto financed my research on Customer Oriented Electricity (COE), which becomes an entirely new paradigm that addresses the core problem identified by Jack Casazza in "Pick Your Poison." As an engineer, under the vertically integrated paradigm, I completely agreed with Jack’s article under faulty deregulation. By the way, I have followed his good work and papers with interest for some time. I agree also with Prof Banks: How did the farce happen?

However, under COE, even with oligopolies on the wholesale market, true retail competition can be organized to pursue economic efficiency (I don’t claim to be an economist), leading to maximum welfare. Please take a look at my comments (and their hyperlinks) under the following article, where I explain uniqueness of the electric industry, price reductions only after a while, the need for a new value chain, physical hedging (related to item 3 and 4 academic arguments at the end of Prof. Banks article), etc. As you can see my work is not based on ideology, but on careful insights, systems architecture and design. Below I add additional comments as an antidote to the faulty deregulation poison, which by all means are not based on ideology at all.

Jack’s assumption that there can be no product (actually service) differentiation is true under a deterministic world, but false on a probabilistic one. Every customer has a perceived supply security requirement (which can vary) that minimizes his/her costs of electricity in the long run. By developing and applying demand response technology, an opportunity to develop new competing business designs innovations can be implemented to satisfy long run least cost power sector development and benefit from increases in scale (item 1 of Prof. Banks academic arguments: is discussed in my last comment to said article). Actually, under systemic competitiveness that would change from least cost to maximum value added.

Under the old paradigm, I also agree with Jack that “Busy signals are not acceptable when a user flicks a switch to light a room.” However, under the new paradigm demand response becomes a condition of service, meaning that customers with low supply security requirements need to respond more frequently, but don’t have to pay (for something they don’t need) the same average rates as customers with high supply security requirements. The result is (or will eventually be) positive, when transaction costs are lower than the value destruction produced by the average rates (see my comments under the article, about some utilities that have justify the investment on other benefits).

On today’s faulty deregulations, short run spot prices do not signal correctly the lack of reserves permitting gaming. On true deregulation, competitive retailers will develop strategies to control price spikes from developing in the first place. They will do that by deploying demand response and energy efficiency investments (item 2 of Prof. Banks academic arguments).

Mr. Casazza though that customers purchasing small generators was due simply because low reliability. Today is known that the penetration of distributed resources is due to disruptive technologies that replaces in many cases efficiently costly peaking units located far from load centers, as well as to represent very well the differentiated requirements of customers supply security (reliability).

Clearly, places that have deregulated already (with agreements of the weird sort, as Professor Banks calls them) will find very difficult and costly to change to true deregulation (and very real choice) of electricity. Under true deregulation efficient generators will be able carry high power factors, but will be unable to earn the huge profits they got under faulty deregulation. So I agree with Professor Banks that to be the case for those countries he mentioned unable to migrate to true deregulation.

Closing questions to Professor Banks:

1. Do you think that Jack’s comment “The changes resulting in these massive errors were a reaction to many years of unfair regulation by often-incompetent regulators, many of whom were concerned with their political and professional futures rather than protection of the consumers” is going to go away anytime soon? It seems that Southern Company isn’t the rule. I prefer to do without with utilities winning cases to regulators under vertical integration, and limiting it only to the wires investments monopoly regulation.
2. Do you see the possibility to organize true retail competition (no price controls) under prudential regulation, even when there are generating oligopolies?
3. What do you see lacking in the approach I suggest?
4. As some retail marketers will become global companies that compete in several local markets, can they become the target for fusions and acquisitions to develop oligopolies? Do you anticipate how to mitigate it?
5. I see retail marketers’ economies of scope, by taking charge of other services, like telephone, gas, water, and even insurance. Can this be a means for mitigation under question 2?
6. Knowing that value added electricity will come from knowledge intensive coordination of highly distributed activities (some optimal percentage of demand side risk management), instead of physical investment on peaking reserves to be used just a few hours a year (100% supply side risk management). Do you still think that vertical integration is a real vision for the future?

Those are my friendly comments on true retail deregulation.

Merry Christmas to you all.

© José Antonio Vanderhorst-Silverio, PhD. 2005.

jueves, diciembre 22, 2005

Teorizando con Francisco Méndez sobre Palos a Ciegas

Muy estimado Francisco,

Anoche, en la reunión de la CDEEE, usaste el término despectivo teorizar para referirte a las propuestas que he venido realizando a través de la Bitácora Digital del GMH. Luego de pensar cuidadosamente la razón por la que empleaste dicho término, y por la alta inteligencia que posees y el respeto que te tengo, he llegado a la conclusión que estas solicitándome ayuda. Es en ese sentido que te envío esta atenta y oportuna respuesta.

Como bien comprendes, mi trabajo teórico-práctico simplemente identifica la existencia de subsidios cruzados encubiertos por seguridad de suministro a consecuencia del irrespeto de un objetivo básico de la Ley General de Electricidad, que obliga a respetar los derechos de los consumidores discriminados a consecuencia de la gestión de la demanda a ser compensados siempre que cumplan con su obligación de pago. Sabes muy bien que no existe ninguna teoría para sustentar la discriminación sin compensación a los clientes que pagan.

Ciertamente, ustedes necesitan de una teoría que respalde sus prácticas, porque una práctica sin teoría es ciega. Evidentemente, si siguen en el 2006 con la misma práctica, lo que resultará serán más palos a ciegas. El Banco Mundial se lavó las manos diciendo que ustedes iban a estudiar la propuesta que hicimos y te sugiero que tomes el liderazgo que te han conferido al nombrarte Superintendente. Esa es una decisión institucional que debes tomar.

Esperando haber interpretado correctamente tu solicitud de auxilio.

Un fuerte abrazo,

José Antonio


--
José Antonio Vanderhorst-Silverio, PhD
Interdependent Consultant on Electricity
BS ´68, MS ´71 & PhD ´72, all from Cornell University
Valued IEEE Member for 35 Years.
javs@ieee.org
Research and practice areas, and interests: systems architecture, systems thinking, retail marketing, customer orientation, information systems requirements and design, market rules, contract assistance.

miércoles, diciembre 21, 2005

José You Are Close... José Estas Bien Cerca...

Dear VIP,

Go directly to the Index below.

Best regards,

José Antonio Vanderhorst-Silverio, PhD

Estimada y estimados VIPs

Vayan directamente abajo al índice.

Con mucha estima,

José Antonio Vanderhorst Silverio, PhD

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

GRUPO MILLENNIUM HISPANIOLA

BLOG INDEX FROM DECEMBER 15 TO 21, 2005.

INDICE DE LA BITACORA DIGITAL DEL 15 AL 21 DE DICIEMBRE, 2005

1. Retail Market Deregulation Dialogue on EnergyPulse Part 2

21 Dec 2005

Un nuevo comentario que respalda mis planteamientos, aunque asegura que me quedo corto, aparecer en seguimiento a Retail Market Deregulation Dialogue on EnergyPulse. Veamos:. Len Gould. 12.21.05 says:. Jose: You're close, just not going ...

2. Retail Market Deregulation Dialogue on EnergyPulse

21 Dec 2005

En Free All Wisconsin Utilities to Make Money Helping Customer's Save Energy (Energy Management) - Stephen Heins, VP of Corporate Communication, Orion Energy Systems, me contestó lo que sigue y le respondí ...

3. Apliquemos el Recetario de Aznar para Lograr un Centro de ...

20 Dec 2005

Anoche fue cuando tuve la oportunidad de escuchar una gran parte de las recetas para un buen gobierno que José María Aznar ofreció en la Fundación Global. Me encantó la explicación del aumento de 50% en el empleo acontecido en España en ...

4. Free All Customers Everywhere

19 Dec 2005

I have added a comment to the article "Free All Wisconsin Utilities to Make Money Helping Customer's Save Energy," by Stephen Heins, VP of Corporate Communication, Orion Energy Systems, on EnergyPulse, that reads as follows: ...

5. DR1: Business leaders want to "float" electricity

19 Dec 2005

GMH takes note of the considerations of the leading business sectors of DR. Again, we advise that the contracts should be renegotiated thinking on the future, and not just on short run competitiveness, but on real systemic ...

6. Small is Beautiful: Supporting Greater Wind Energy Usage

17 Dec 2005

I made a comment on "Energy Storage - Supporting Greater Wind Energy Usage," by Richard Baxter on EnergyPulse, that reads. Small is beautiful. It is now clear that distributed resources cannot be compared with central stations, ...

7. Letter to Dr. Alfred E. Kahn

17 Dec 2005

Dear Professor Banks, Below you may find a letter that I just sent to Dr. Alfred Kahn. If you have a comment regarding the letter, please don't hesitate to make it. Best regards, José Antonio Vanderhorst-Silverio, PhD. Dear Dr. Kahn ...

8. DR1: Leonel promotes technology

16 Dec 2005

President Leonel Fernandez wants the Dominican Republic to emulate the state of Florida in becoming a "technological corridor". He spoke yesterday at the IT Technological Forum of Florida, an activity sponsored by Governor Jeb Bush. ...

9. Power Encounter: Lessons from the Failure of U.S. Electricity Restructuring

16 Dec 2005

Power Encounter es el blog de Jesús M. Martín-Giraldo, de Madrid, España. Su introducción es: Power Industry is experiencing a deep reform. Advances in technology are seen as drivers to improve electricity business performance ...

10.
Re: Mensaje de Navidad: Solución al Problema Eléctrico de la República ...

16 Dec 2005

Muchas gracias Radhamés, porque tu aporte enfatiza y ayuda a aclarar el mensaje de Navidad. La idea de mucho material colgante se refiere a todos los funcionarios públicos de los cuatro poderes, así como los líderes del sector ...

11. Re: Mensaje de Navidad: Solución al Problema Eléctrico de la República Domin...

15 Dec 2005

Hola José. Muchas gracias por felicitarnos. Hoy ya son 7 meses de Bitácora y muchos otros esfuerzos antes de eso. Creo que realmente inicié esta fase en 1993, cuando empecé a opinar con el Proyecto de Ley General de Electricidad ...

Retail Market Deregulation Dialogue on EnergyPulse Part 2

Un nuevo comentario que respalda mis planteamientos, aunque asegura que me quedo corto, aparece en seguimiento a Retail Market Deregulation Dialogue on EnergyPulse. Veamos:

Len Gould

12.21.05 says:

Jose: You're close, just not going quite far enough. You need to eliminate your "Retail marketers" by implementing intelligent software within the customer's meters which takes over the simple task of selecting either a lowest-cost supplier from among all available in a central electronic "marketplace", or alternatively choose to not purchase, and shut down some of the customer's less critical loads if the price exceeds customer-set limits.

Jose Antonio Vanderhorst-Silverio says in response:

12.21.05

Thank you very much Len for the “lead” and a sharp comment.

Being conservative, I agree with you if there were only the short run market problem. However, there is also a long run problem for which retailers need to coordinate in the wholesale market. This is where I understand boom bust (long run risk management) power system behavior should be managed from the demand side by retail (and wholesale) marketers. Marketing service offerings need to be designed based on what will be coming up in the future.

In addition, while most price response marketplaces have been designed with real-time, day ahead, and hour ahead markets, I strongly believe there is an important week ahead market mainly (some industries would classify also) for the low end residential market, where retailers need to participate on the wholesale market to complete week-ahead unit commitments.

However, I don’t dismiss "just not going far enough," because I am over 60 years old now, having work through design, operation, planning, management, and research of vertically integrated and (faulty) deregulated power systems, which don’t let me see very well outside of the box. For those simple reasons, Len, maybe I missing something really important, so please advise!

Regards,

José Antonio

Retail Market Deregulation Dialogue on EnergyPulse

En Free All Wisconsin Utilities to Make Money Helping Customer's Save Energy (Energy Management) - Stephen Heins, VP of Corporate Communication, Orion Energy Systems, me contestó lo que sigue y le respondí

Jose,

While I truly favor free markets for most goods and services, I have yet to find a competitive solution to the "last mile" problems for telecommunications and energy. In addition, you certainly must have noticed that the U.S. and most of the 50 states have retreated from deregulation over the last five years, because of reckless acts of manipulation by Enron, et al.

This is a long way of saying that my article is dealing with the real world of 2005-2006 and not some hypothetical free market experiment.

As for your point about monopolies ( and the "outdated business model "), the solution lies with state regulators who establish aggressive energy efficiency standards for the utilities so that everyone benefits from meeting those requirements.

Steve


Thank you very much Steve for your kind response. I am sorry for the extended response I will give you and the readers, but I don’t have time to make it shorter, even with the addition of my earlier comments.

I understand that the telecommunication business has a problem with the last mile. However, I have proposed elsewhere that the electricity industry has a problem with the first minutes. The problem with the first minutes results when customers are not able to respond to prices, and is resolved with demand response. It was precisely the lack of demand response that lets spot prices increase beyond reasonable values, leading to generator market power and congestion.

If I understand correctly, states now are supposed to study how useful demand response is, and the most important application is precisely to implement retail deregulation. To have a real social impact, states regulators should look deeply into liberating retail markets again.

I believe to have understood what is needed to design a true deregulation model for the electric sector. Dr. Alfred Kahn said some time ago that: "I am worried about the uniqueness of the electricity markets. I've always been uncertain about eliminating vertical integration. It may be one industry in which it works reasonably well."

That uniqueness is associated with the non-lineal nature of the risk of system failure. Physical risk of system failure, linked to high prices in deregulated systems, used to be managed as a supply security risk under vertical integration. The apparently large costs of generation and transmission reserves required, under vertical integrated utilities from resulting risk management planning, became the target of inefficiency identified by economist and policy makers at the outset of deregulation.

By reducing reserves and creating congestion, here and there, long run risk of failure was thus increased by deregulation of wholesale markets and incomplete deregulation of retail markets. Associated with the physical risks was increased value destruction, and unstable markets. I believe those to be the structural reasons of the uniqueness of the electrical industry.

In the mean time, as technology has progressed, end-customers perceived sensitivity to shortages has spread sufficiently as to make invalid the assumption that customers can be classified in neat classes to pay average rates. In a sense, that sensitivity is the basis for differentiating customers, and the essence for a retail market to be developed. In addition, progress has also brought us the new technology of Demand Response together with an Automated Metering Infrastructure (AMI).

DR technology can complement the mitigation of physical risk of system failure and spot price sharp increases, as a non-linear feedback mechanism to repositioned systems reserves, in time and space, much better than lumpy investments in generation, transmission, and distribution. By developing a market on customers differentiated supply security (sensitivity to shortage) requirements, an efficient rationing system can be developed. Investment on an AMI is apparently feasible just on the operational benefits to the distributor.

The architecture of a "true" deregulated model is centered on independent retail-marketers, and a new value chain, whose mission is to segment customers according to electricity value added services, which customers can select. The value chain is wholesale, retail, end customer, leaving the distributor as a pure transporter charging a toll. Retail-marketers then take control of the strategic Enterprise Solutions, developing innovative business models. As each customer selects what he perceives is the maximum value addition, the economy as a whole maximizes welfare.

This is just a glimpse of my insights, design, research and, humbled observations of the past 10 years. By no means am I saying that retail markets development will be easy. No; there is a lot of work needed to make it happen. Most investment in energy efficiency needs to look to the next 5 years, away from the Continuity scenario. I will be very happy if one place in the world decides to initiate the experiments requiresd for the development of new business models on retail marketing, and I wish to be there.

© José Antonio Vanderhorst-Silverio, PhD

martes, diciembre 20, 2005

Apliquemos el Recetario de Aznar para Lograr un Centro de Producción de Primer Nivel

Anoche fue cuando tuve la oportunidad de escuchar una gran parte de las recetas para un buen gobierno que José María Aznar ofreció en la Fundación Global. Me encantó la explicación del aumento de 50% en el empleo acontecido en España en sus 8 años de gobierno. Me encantó la importancia que le dio a la confianza y a la estabilidad institucional. Me encantó la receta de dejar de lado la demagogia y el populismo. Me encantó la receta de acordar reglas que no se tocan orientadas al futuro de la nación en las contiendas electorales.

Es sobre esas reglas que cabe concentrar la atención de separar el sector eléctrico de las elecciones que están sobre el tapete. Un sistema eléctrico confiable se destruye cuando la electricidad deja de fluir sorpresivamente, no importa tiempo haya pasado con buen servicio. Los dominicanos tenemos una gran oportunidad para transformar nuestro sector eléctrico en uno tan o más confiable que el de muchos otros lugares del mundo. Al igual que Irlanda o Inglaterra, un servicio eléctrico desarrollado alrededor del mercadeo de electricidad al detalle, sin control de precios, incrementará la credibilidad y permitirá generar una confianza sin igual del sector eléctrico.

Ya en junio 17 publicamos la nota Servicio Eléctrico de Calidad Comercial y Centros de Producción de Primer Nivel, que expresa claramente el rumbo que debemos seguir. La atracción de inversión extranjera de los Estados Unidos y Europa a consecuencia de la confianza que generará el sector eléctrico, generará a su vez exportaciones dominicanas al exterior. La inversión extranjera también generará un aumento del consumo interno y el fortalecimiento de los negocios locales que los abastezcan, basados en la competitividad sistémica. En definitiva, al igual que España, el empleo no puede sino incrementarse decididamente si desarrollamos el país como un centro de producción de primer nivel. Positivamente, eso puede ocurrir si los sectores públicos y privados desarrollan un liderazgo fuerte y unificado.

Que el Señor los ilumine a todos,

José Antonio