lunes, octubre 02, 2006

On the End-State of the Power Industry Part 2

Hello Sean

On the wake of the 2003 blackout, you wrote a very interesting article entitled “Ten Questions for Electric Utility Regulators,” asking them to “Answer these questions… Dig into them. Don’t shy away from uncomfortable conclusions. Use your own staff to research the answers rather than relying exclusively on the analysis of interested parties. Once you have done so, you will be positioned to craft a reasonable electricity regulatory structure. But until you have completed this exercise, you will not have the tools to credibly free yourself from the vested interests of the parties you regulate…Good luck”.

I think that Electricity Without Price Controls (EWPC) is the correct regulatory and market structure, that it seems to me – correct me if I am wrong - you are shying away from them because they are offering such uncomfortable conclusions. By looking closely to EWPC, the utility and the regulator are being replaced as intermediaries of the customer by competitive retailers on the competitive activities. I think that regulators (seem to be very happy losing rate cases) will find it difficult to shy away from the business that utilities are in. States congress does not have the conflict of interest that regulators have, so they should find and retain a system architect with the competence required to do the work of answering your ten questions and a few more. I believe I have already done just that, but remain open to be proven wrong.

José Antonio

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