It seems that none have had much luck with competitive electric markets and the major complaint seems to be that they've all proved to be anti-consumer. There seems to be no evidence that EWPC, should anyone be naive enough to try it (I'm still not convinced they haven't!), will lead to the same undesirable result - overcharged consumers. All those extra middlemen are expensive.

Sorry Don,

This is not about votes; it is about relevance.

Readers interested in the positive results of the debate in favor of EWPC should concentrate on why Dick Maclay ended his relevant participation. Then Fred Banks added a comment which was only for Dick. Next Don changed the subject. Readers should go to the start of Dick's relevant participation and will conclude that an EWPC EPAct will provide fair electricity prices.

This was what I wrote that Dick has not answered:

Dick,

I will tell you where we agree and where we need to inquire further on your last post.

We agree that "Regulated rates misrepresent the costs of providing service. Therefore, we find customers installing equipment that makes sense given the rates, but that often is clearly not the economic choice when both customer and utility costs are taken into account... Unfortunately, regulated prices are so misleading that it is impossible to correct the effects of bad price signals on a significant scale. This is what is depressing capacity utilization and it is limiting our ability to reduce air emissions as well ... No system that is applied only on the utility side of the meter can cure the biggest problem in the electric industry – customers optimizing to misleading retail prices" In a sense, we need a way to maximize social welfare.

We also agree that "Unfortunately, regulators are proving incapable of fixing their prices. ... The regulatory problems in the electric industry are much more extensive than they were in transportation. That makes it very easy to point out on a micro scale how to improve efficiency by removing the influence of regulators. When macro and micro analyses reach the same conclusions that increases confidence in the results." That is just another way of saying "Readers need to concentrate on all the post above on one thing: the basic debate underneath the explanations is that of the overdue price controls. Regulators should not be allowed by legislative action to make the technology bets they are currently doing."

Both of those agreements suffice to support the statement "Since we have achieved conversational clarity, the power industry can eliminate its price controls to the end customer." Next this is where we differ. I suggest that we dialogue to inquiry to get in balanced with advocacy. Your comments are invited for a generative dialogue.

Phasing in deregulation is to enable the E1R2 policy (see earlier posts and their links), which leads to a systemic crisis (when the power system gets into its limits on E1 events that disrupt R2 – most price spikes are correlated with low reliability - like that of the 2003 blackout arise that reduce stakeholders confidence) and as a result a vicious circle. All the complexity introduced for example by capacity markets and NERC mandatory requirements need to be dismantled by going back to the essence which is on what EWPC is based on.

One of the most important benefits of the EWPC approach, which you consider purist, is the R1E2 policy. See on my post of 5.19.08 that Van Doren and Taylor "... 'previously unknown' problems arose because of the non-trivial nature of the vertically integrated utilities (VIUs) paradigm which is preserved under EWPC with R1E2." In practice, the implementation of the open and the closed ideal markets reference will be impacted by the reality of its approximations.

The R1E2 policy is required to develop a futures market, which is not possible with the E1R2 policy, as just one critical event might disrupt them. The futures market will be enabled by the smart grid transportation only utility. Instead of the vicious circle that the E2R1 policy produces, the systemic interaction of the open and closed market should aim to a virtuous circle.

Regards,

José Antonio

Here's one for the JAVS relevance test:

COMMISSION STAYS FIRM ON ENERGY RATES

A divided Public Service Commission on Tuesday rebuffed
manufacturers' pleas to reconsider a decision against electricity
rates that would rise and fall with seasonal demand. - (YellowBrix)
--> http://www.energycentral.com/global/news_text.cfm?...

In the interest of relevance, make that Florida PSC, not Georgia PSC.

Jose,

Here's another sad commentary on the results of introducing competition and electric energy markets by artificial insemination:

A CRITICAL ASSESSMENT OF ELECTRICITY AND NATURAL GAS DEREGULATION

Economic deregulation of electric and gas utilities has failed to
achieve its proposed objectives of lowering price, promoting
greater consumer choice, constraining market power, and improving
infrastructure performance. - (YellowBrix)
--> http://www.energycentral.com/global/news_text.cfm?...

Don responded with Jose,

It seems that you truly have discovered yet another way to introduce electric energy price spikes without Tand D failures, R1E2. Who did you say will pay for R1? Perhaps that is why E1 has become E2. Or are you operating under the premise that the consumer won't have pay for what he can't have? Or do "demand integration", "rational rationing" and "prudential regulation" fall once again into those tacit properties of EWPC that defy explanation or, as I understand you, can only be experienced? Regulator "bets" seem tame in comparison.