The Sense of Urgency for EWPC Restructuring

There is a strong sence of urgency for the implementation of EWPC. Professor Alberto Ramírez Orquín writes "Soaring prices together with the perception of a deteriorating service/product quality contribute to this notion. For the electric power system this trend is particularly worrisome given its vital implications to society."

The Sense of Urgency for EWPC Restructuring

By José Antonio Vanderhorst-Silverio, Ph.D.

Systemic Consultant: Electricity

Copyright © 2007 José Antonio Vanderhorst-Silverio. All rights reserved. No part of this article may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, without written permission from José Antonio Vanderhorst-Silverio. Please write to javs@ieee.org to contact the author for any kind of engagement.

Dear Professor Ramírez Orquín.

Your article is giving the proper emphasis for the sense of urgency on the right king of restructuring of the electric power industry, when you write: "Soaring prices together with the perception of a deteriorating service/product quality contribute to this notion. For the electric power system this trend is particularly worrisome given its vital implications to society."

I agree that “The current restructuring drive has not seemed, as some policy makers expected, to improve this condition and may have actually made it worse.” In 2004, The Cato Institute experts Peter Van Duren and Jerry Taylor recommended total abandonment of restructuring.

Electricity without price controls (EWPC) is a paradigm shift that makes the case for restructuring as explained in Rethinking Electricity Restructuring as EWPC. The new drive would make things better, as technological innovation are waiting to be integrated to power system planning, operation and control with at least six sets of disruptive technologies, as explained in The Sixth Disruptive Technology.

One of the main problem with restructuring was separating transmission from distribution to keep regulated retail together with distribution. In the article Give Engineers What Belongs to Engineers and its hiperlinks the “two dominant components i.e. the socio-normative and the technological ones, both…” will be “working harmonically.”

For more details see the Electricity Without Price Controls and the Grupo Millennium Hispaniola blogs.

Regards,

José Antonio Vanderhorst-Silverio, Ph.D.
Systemic Consultant: Electricity
Dominican Republic

Reference and context: The Potential for an Effective and Timely Deregulatory Endeavor by Alberto Ramirez Orquin, Associate Professor of Electrical Engineering, University of Puerto Rico at Mayaguez.