Social Goals and Electric-Utility Deregulation

摘要

During the past several months, the spot price of electricity on the West Coast has averaged about 2 cents/kilowatt hour (kWh). At the same time, utility customers in California were paying double and triple that amount. Such a sharp discrepancy between market prices of electricity and the regulated prices that consumers pay is the primary driving force behind efforts to restructure the U.S. electric-utility industry to open it up to competition. The industry has already begun to evolve from a highly regulated, vertically integrated system of retail-monopoly franchises to a less regulated, diversified group of companies in a competitive market. This change is part of a larger economic trend that includes deregulation of U.S. banking, telecommunications, trucking, airlines, and natural gas industries, as well as the worldwide transition of many centrally planned economies to market systems.