Synthesis of Electricity Without Price Controls

Electric power deregulation that separates transmission and distribution - the FERC way - is flawed, because that separation is not done at a modular interface. The interface isn't modular when most needed - when real time reserves are low - amplifying input fuel prices into output electricity prices, instead of mitigating them. True functional reform simply separates wires from the competitive activities of generation and retail, at modular interfaces with the wires. The resulting value chain of the competitive activities is wholesale, retail, customer. Supply side (watts and vars generation) and demand side (energy efficiency, demand response, distributed generation, and storage) resource adequacy responsibility should be kept by a planning (long run) and operating (short run) unit associated with the wires monopoly for the whole power system. The result is a robust, complete, and fully functional market of the competitive activities. Those are the control elements of true deregulation of electricity. That will be the electric idyll of the new era - the End-State of the electricity industry. European Union seems to be closer to that goal than the U.S. As a reference, please read "a Dominican strategy," in IEEE Power & Energy, May-June, 2006 and/or place vanderhorst-silverio at www.energypulse.net on a search engine.