DISTRIBUTED RESOURCES: THE NEXT WAVE (OR REGULATORY BARRIERS TO NEW SOLUTIONS)

摘要

Deregulation in the US is proceeding more slowly than predicted five years ago, but will continue to progress driven by factors such as demand from large-use customers, innovations in technology and global considerations. Deregulation at the wholesale level is proceeding successfully, and price differentials from state to state have motivated large-use customers in areas of high rates to push for further deregulation in order to take advantage of expected price leveling. Deregulation of wholesale markets has led to broker trading of electricity as a commodity, which has helped bring prices down and spawned cost-cutting measures within the industry. Impediments to rapid deregulation of retail electricity include the fragmented nature of regulation in the US and concerns from consumer advocacy groups. These impediments result in less investment in the Generation and T&D infrastructure and in erosion of system reliability. Meanwhile, smaller distributed resource technologies make entry into the generation and energy services market more feasible for non-utilities. Both the emerging and increasingly competitive new technologies and new applications of underutilized existing distributed resources are creating new products/services in the energy marketplace. All these factors must be considered within the framework of the global electric industry. Deregulation of the US industry and emerging technologies allow investment to flow both inward and outward and presents opportunities for strategic alliances and partnerships between energy companies in the US and other countries.