Managing transmission grid investment in a competitive world

摘要

A mid the Federal Energy Regulatory Com-mission's (FERC) regulatory actions to secure the benefits of competition, there is growing concern that grid reliability is declining, and that the industry's efforts to improve the quality of the system are not keeping up with its increasing use by the competitive electric power industry. For more than a decade, investment in the grid has been declining as utilities have cut costs, regulatory incentives have steadily declined and uncertainty has grown about future ownership rules. Despite its continuous pressure to force the opening of the grid and FERC's more recent interest in pushing utilities to divest transmission ownership, until now it has shown very little interest in mandating new investment to overcome existing deficiencies even as it encourages utilities to sell their assets to independent companies by promising them higher rates of return. Nor has FERC identified financial standards for grid owners despite the recent financial scandals facing the industry.