Default Service Pricing Has Been Wrong All Along

摘要

Default service prices have been wrong for two decades. Most of the states that have implemented competition in electric and gas sales have employed a Provider of Last Resort, POLR, or default service to supply electricity to customers who do not select an alternative provider. Yet the utilities allocate few to no "costs to serve customers" to default service rates. This practice has allowed the incumbent utilities to price default service below market rates. And it has allowed them to maintain unregulated monopoly-like power and dominant market positions in the energy markets in their respective service territories.