A Shorcut to the End-State of the Electricity Industry

I have made a comment to the article Energy Bill 2005 - A Waste of Time?, by Amatsia Kashti, PhD , Managing Director, Olive Domestic Metering Ltd., which says:

Dr. Kashti analisys should be completed by including the Demand Response part of the bill and to look at other benefits that an AMI infrastructure will bring to the busines case for such enlarged service.

I agree with Len, there is no "business case" for present businesses to implement this metering service. However, I believe that a "business case" for the enlarged service, that will lead to the End-State of the electricity industry requires a true retail deregulation, where retailers compete with each other, and where as Dr Kashti says "metering is taken out of the hands of the" distributors (utilities that will then simply transport electricity to end users).

Such "business case" is based on my article "An Alternative Business Case for Demand Response," which solves the "basic reliability control purposes" that Len left out. I believe that Demand Response is a demand side risk management tool that complements the "LOLP" supply side risk management tool. To implement the "basic reliability control," retailers segment customers by their supply security requirements.

As can be seen, retailer's jobs are to minimize customer's short run and long run electricity costs. Retailers may do that by purchasing the energy requirements from energy suppliers and the spot market. Retailers will also be deploying demand response, and energy efficiency, which by the way are, respectively, their most important tools to control the spot price, and to negotiate long term contracts with suppliers. Instead of a dream, as David claims, I think this is a very clear vision of the End-State of the electricity industry.

By the way Len, I think the natural T&D monopolies will still require regulation.