viernes, diciembre 01, 2006

Let's Get Out of Back Rooms to a Generative Dialogue Part 7

Ferdinand Banks added a comment to AMI Services Solutions for Alberta's Deregulated Market, which I responded to as follows:

Thanks Ferdinand for point out that the residential customers are not happy in Texas. Item 5 Let's Get Out of Back Rooms to a Generative Dialogue Part 2, above your comment is precisely about TXU, which is a good starting point for a generative dialogue on Texas. This is also an example of deregulation of the weird sort, as you used to call it.

To go back to the origin of my dialogue with Prof. Banks, at the beginning of this year, in the posts some friendly comments on true electric deregulation part 5, I wrote (some typos are now corrected and new insights have emerge on EWPC during the year):

Maybe we need a new expression different from "true" deregulation to convince experts that non-market solutions to electricity industry are (or will soon be) inefficient. Neither utilities, nor regulators, are prepared to cross the chasm. We need competitors to cross the chasm, and so far I have received no acceptable arguments from the experts quoted by Prof. Banks. A simple (but not simplistic) architecture centered on retailers, while keeping the vertical control supply chain structure based on demand response, is worth a try.

Professor Banks decided not to answer my questions and referred them to experts and to a widespread audience, which I am glad that he did. I think he saved face while giving me the benefit of the doubt, which I had documented earlier on my blog. As far I humbly learn, none of the experts had anything substantial against my proposal of true deregulation yet.

While not claiming to be an expert on Sweden, the problem experimented with price spikes and insufficient reserves, due to faulty deregulation, can be mitigated (unless they are of the wierd sort) by completing the market so that customers become part of the system. A hint to that effect is to ensure that electricity sold Germany is priced on short run marginal costs of energy and supply security. However, that proposition depends on answering apparently tough questions, like my earlier questions, for which I want feedback. I repeat them again in a readable format:”

For the detailed questions, see the post.

Finally, unless we find a new name for "true" deregulation, I wish Prof. Banks would change his article to A Few More Unfriendly Comments on "Faulty" Electric Deregulation. I understand that the EU is now questioning competition in electricity and gas, and I humbly think it is the right moment for Sweden to get a better deal. Finally I hope Prof. Banks NIMBY refers only to faulty deregulation.

I suggest, to readers interested in the generative dialogue, the book “Blackout: How the Electric Industry Exploits America,” by Gordon Weil, whose purpose “is to reveal much of what has been hidden from the general public and to suggest how matters may be improved. Much consumer apathy results from ignorance about electric industry and the sense that consumers have no power to bring about change. Because the voice of the consumer is weak and because of the pernicious effect of campaign contributions by the industry, politicians do not take up the consumer’s cause but instead acquiesce in the growing power of the major electric industry companies.”