On Wednesday, December 6 at 11 a.m. EST, join us for a conversation on competition in electricity markets. Competition provides economic, reliability, environmental, and governance benefits. Yet 18 states still use the traditional regulatory model that allows large vertically integrated utilities to hold a monopoly in their service areas. Another 19 states allow wholesale competition but still allow regulated monopolies to serve all or most retail customers. Just 13 states and Washington D.C. allow competition at the retail and wholesale levels. While many states are considering increasing competition in their wholesale markets, small consumers in retail markets are still being left behind. Click here to register for this webinar at 11 a.m. EST on Wednesday, December 6.
A new paper from the energy experts at The R Street Institute finds that full competition in electricity markets delivers the most consumer benefits. The report provides further evidence that the existing big government central planning regulatory system in most state electricity markets is impeding the energy transition and saddling consumers with higher utility bills.
The paper, Electric Paradigms: Competitive Structures Benefit Consumers, recommends states pursue full restructuring of their wholesale and retail electricity markets to capitalize on private sector investment and consumer demand for new products and services.
“Electric competition has worked. It provides economic, reliability, environmental and governance benefits. It can work much better with stronger pro-market reforms,” the authors of the paper conclude.
The Texas State Senate will take up an energy package today that sponsors claim will strengthen the state’s electricity system, but that threatens to undermine Texas’ first-in-the-nation competitive market and burden Texans with higher energy bills.
The legislative package, unveiled earlier this month, comes two years after a deadly winter storm paralyzed the state, sparking a public debate about the power system’s resiliency.
The Senate Business and Commerce Committee is holding a hearing on the package at 8 a.m. central time Thursday, March 23.
The centerpiece of the package, Senate Bill 6, would require the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) to add 10,000 megawatts of natural gas-fired “back-up” generation. That’s roughly a dozen new gas powerplants at a cost that Stoic Energy President Doug Lewin of the Texas Energy and Power Newsletter estimates at $11 billion.
The following principles provide a unifying foundation for well-designed consumer choice in retail electricity markets, as well as the associated transmission and distribution system operations.
Consumer Choice. Customers should have a choice regarding who supplies their energy and the type of rates they have access to, from standard flat rates to time-of-use and even real-time pricing rates, in which case they may choose to adjust their consumption patterns to reduce their electricity costs.
Encourages Electrification. As electricity becomes cheaper, while other energy prices remain more volatile, customers are incentivized to switch to more electric devices, including vehicles, appliances, and HVAC systems.
Solar company Sunnova wants to give new homeowners an alternative to electric utilities like Pacific Gas and Electric, cracking open the door to competition with a combination of solar and batteries in a “microgrid.” The proposal would end nearly a century of guaranteed monopoly for California utilities by letting other companies not just sell power but use an alternative delivery system to the utility’s platform. Regulators shouldn’t just let them through this opening, they should take the door off its hinges.
Numerous companies and homeowners are proving the upside of broadening grid access. OhmConnect, Tesla, and other companies are providing hundreds of megawatts of electricity capacity, forestalling rolling blackouts in California. Community solar developers in Minnesota have installed over 800 megawatts of solar projects that are reducing energy bills for over 12,000 households and hundreds of businesses. More than 1 in 4 Hawaiian households have spent their own money to add electricity capacity, reducing the island state’s reliance on imported fuel oil.
Everywhere these entrepreneurs turn, however, they’re being blocked by the incumbent utility that wields its monopoly platform as a weapon. Allowing this abuse of power threatens grid reliability, affordable electricity and our democracy.
A recent report by the Institute for Local Self-Reliance (ILSR) highlights how inconsistent and cumbersome permitting processes at the local government level hinder the adoption of residential rooftop solar. The new report Overcoming Permitting Barriers for Rooftop Solar in Minnesota breaks down how local governments often slow residential solar projects with cumbersome or confusing permitting rules.
When gas prices spike, drivers can see the change instantly at the pump and adjust their behavior accordingly. But when electricity costs surge, utilities continue charging a flat rate, giving consumers no way to avoid higher expenses. Michael Giberson over at the R Street Institute is out today with a commentary on how this outdated system, rooted in century-old regulations, shields price signals from consumers—preventing them from making cost-saving choices.
The U.S. power grid added more solar capacity in 2024 than from any other energy source in over two decades, according to a new report from the Solar Energy Industries Association and Wood Mackenzie. With approximately 50 gigawatts of new solar generation, the milestone underscores the rapid expansion of clean energy.
Once-public-minded electric utilities have shifted from serving customers to maximizing profits—at the expense of reliability and affordability. That’s the conclusion of a recent paper from Mark Ellis for the American Economic Liberties Project.
The solar power industry, which accounted for over half of all new electricity added to the grid last year, faces a turbulent future as President-elect Trump and a Republican-controlled Congress consider rolling back federal incentives. The 30% federal tax credit that has driven much of solar’s growth is in question, prompting some homeowners to accelerate installations while others are deterred by the uncertainty.
The utility watchdog Energy and Policy Institute highlights a bill introduced last week in Virginia that would prohibit the utilities Dominion Energy and Appalachian Power from charging customers for their political activities.
The bill, HB 792, would bar Virginia’s investor-owned electric utilities from charging their customers for their dues to trade associations, lobbying government officials, advertising, and other efforts to influence public opinion, charitable giving, and litigation to challenge regulations or laws. Current law in Virginia only bans utilities from recovering the costs of advertising.
Dominion Energy and Appalachian Power would still be able to conduct all of those activities, but they would have to fund them from money they would otherwise return to investors as profit, rather than baking them into customers’ monthly bills.
The bill also would require the utilities to file reports annually to allow regulators and the public to ensure that they are following the law, and would apply financial penalties to any utilities who break the new rules.
The Energy Choice Coalition hosted a webinar on Wednesday on the consumer benefits of competition in electricity markets. The discussion is based around a recent R Street Institute paper, Electric Paradigms: Competitive Structures Benefit Consumers, and its recommendations for states to pursue market reforms that increase competition at all levels of electricity markets. Panelists included R Street Institute scholar Michael Giberson, Sunnova’s Meghan Nutting, Northwestern University’s Institute for Regulatory Law & Economics Director Lynne Kiesling, and ECC Director Robert Dillon.
A federal grand jury on Monday indicted the former chair of the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio on 11 counts related to bribery and embezzlement.
The indictment claims Sam Randazzo accepted a $4.3 million bribe in exchange for helping FirstEnergy pass House Bill 6, the 2019 energy law at the center of a wide-ranging federal bribery probe that has already resulted in former speaker of the Ohio House Larry Householder serving a 20-year prison sentence. Householder was convicted in March 2023 by a federal jury of racketeering conspiracy.
House Bill 6 charged Ohio electricity customers a fee to bail out two nuclear plants owned by the FirstEnergy and slashed incentives for renewables and energy efficiency. Ratepayers continue to subsidize a pair of coal plants owned by FirstEnergy and several other utilities because of House Bill 6, according to the Cleveland Plain Dealer.
The watchdog organization the Checks & Balances Project has requested the identities of the Ohio Public Utilities Commission staff members who recommended issuing the protective order that declared publicly available information to be trade secrets in the audit conducted into the details of Ohio’s HB6 law.
The redaction included the identity of the company auditors accused of “overcharging” the Ohio Valley Electric Corp.’s Clifty Creek power plant for coal and other financial information about the utility – details are publicly available in filings to the U.S. Energy Information Administration and on the utility’s website.
The PUCO’s request for the protective order said the “financial information contained in the Audit Reports that is highly sensitive in nature.”
On Wednesday, December 6 at 11 a.m. EST, join us for a conversation on competition in electricity markets. Competition provides economic, reliability, environmental, and governance benefits. Yet 18 states still use the traditional regulatory model that allows large vertically integrated utilities to hold a monopoly in their service areas. Another 19 states allow wholesale competition but still allow regulated monopolies to serve all or most retail customers. Just 13 states and Washington D.C. allow competition at the retail and wholesale levels. While many states are considering increasing competition in their wholesale markets, small consumers in retail markets are still being left behind. Click here to register for this webinar at 11 a.m. EST on Wednesday, December 6.
The Energy and Policy Institute recently published the following report detailing how utility campaign giving nears $500K as Michigan lawmakers weigh energy bills.
Michigan utility giants DTE Energy and Consumers Energy have given state lawmakers nearly half a million dollars in campaign contributions this year, according to new state disclosures that come amid worries that the same legislators will weaken key bills to accelerate the transition to clean energy to appease the utilities.
Political action committees (or PACs) tied to DTE and Consumers have channeled a total of $479,450 to campaign accounts tied to legislators, Governor Gretchen Whitmer, and broader party funds between January 1 and October 20. The filings, released this week, show funds affiliated with 119 of 148 state legislators – 80% of the body – have taken utility money this year. House and Senate energy committee members and chairs are notable beneficiaries, including some who promised to usher in a new era of utility accountability after widespread power outages earlier this year.
The Institute For Self-Reliance (ILSR) has launched a Community Solar Tracker on its website to follow the expansion of rooftop solar beyond individual homeowners. ILSR tracks community solar capacity in states with formal programs that allow non-utility ownership. Through community solar, individuals subscribe to a portion of a nearby solar garden and get credits on their energy bill for the electricity it produces. This way, people without the financial means for solar on their rooftops and people who don’t own suitable rooftops can still reap the benefits of renewable energy. ILSR’s website includes toolkits and other interactive material to empower local residents who want to bring community solar to their area.
The Interstate Renewable Energy Council (IREC) is out with a new report on the use of “group studies” to streamline the interconnection of distributed energy resources (DERs) to the electric distribution grid.
The report, Thinking Outside the Lines: Group Studies in the Distribution Interconnection Process, aims to help regulators, utilities, and clean energy stakeholders evaluate whether group studies may be an effective avenue for addressing interconnection issues.
As an increasing number of DER projects seek to interconnect to the grid, the interconnection process has slowed in many states. It is not uncommon for DER projects to spend years waiting in a queue to be studied. Fewer than 25% of solar and wind projects successfully get through the interconnection bottleneck. Those that do face rising costs, some almost 400% higher than previous years.
The Arizona Corporation Commission (ACC) voted this month to explore possible changes to the compensation rate paid to future rooftop solar customers. The three-to-two vote to reconsider utility buyback rates could make rooftop solar less economical and accessible for many Arizonans.
The state’s compensation rates for homeowners who sell excess electricity from solar rooftops to their utility are already below the average wholesale price.
The ACC heard five hours of public comment on the question of whether to reconsider utility buyback rates with testimony from a broad coalition of businesses, employees, ratepayers, realtors, owners of rooftop solar and other stakeholders who said the commission was hostile to solar energy and would rather see Arizonans remain dependent on coal and natural gas.
Former FERC Chairmen Jon Wellinghoff and Pat Wood write that competitive market systems have proven more effective at driving cost-effective decarbonization than single-utility markets, all while fostering reliability and long-term planning. The op-ed originally appeared in Utility Drive on Sept. 15.
Experts believe that this summer has been the hottest ever recorded on Earth. At the same time that severe weather events are wreaking havoc on our power systems, U.S. energy costs rose two times faster than inflation in 2022. These trendlines are alarming and rightfully capture our attention. Also alarming? The sentiment among some of our nation’s federal electricity regulators that we should move away from open, competitive markets toward monopoly-dominated structures. In the face of pressing cost, climate and grid reliability challenges, this shift would have massive negative consequences for all Americans.
The Arizona Corporation Commission (ACC) will vote Wednesday, October 11, to reconsider its Value of Solar decision and determine whether homeowners and businesses with rooftop solar should be paid less for the power they send back to the grid. The ACC is also considering removing the grandfather protections for customers who already have rooftop solar.
Changing compensation for customers who generate electricity and sell excess power to the grid would destroy the investment expectations of the roughly 270,000 Arizona homeowners who installed rooftop solar systems in the past.
“After years of fighting about solar, no state has ever torpedoed solar owners’ investment backed expectations by refusing to grandfather them on the export rates the government promised to them when they made their solar investments. Tomorrow AZ will consider being the first,” Court Rich, an attorney representing solar companies, posted on social media.
The Energy and Policy Institute published a detailed account this week of Maryland utilities’ abusing their ratepayers' funds to pay for political activities.
Maryland utilities Baltimore Gas and Electric (BGE) and Washington Gas wielded their influence over county officials in recent months in an attempt to halt the implementation of local electrification policies requiring all-electric buildings in new development.
In Howard County, records highlight BGE’s involvement in providing testimony and talking points for county council members for Council Bill 5, which recommends changes to county building codes to implement all-electric buildings.
San Diego public radio station KPBS reports on the Center for Biological Diversity, the Environmental Working Group, and the Protect Our Communities Foundation are challenging the California Public Utility Commission’s adoption of the new rules harming rooftop solar adoption and have asked California’s 1st District Court of Appeal in San Francisco to hold a hearing.
The three groups are challenging the CPUC’s decision to cut the value of electricity generated from solar panels and install $15 monthly fees for residents who add solar panels to their rooftops.
The CPUC voted last December to approve rules which took effect in April.
A new paper from the energy experts at The R Street Institute finds that full competition in electricity markets delivers the most consumer benefits. The report provides further evidence that the existing big government central planning regulatory system in most state electricity markets is impeding the energy transition and saddling consumers with higher utility bills.
The paper, Electric Paradigms: Competitive Structures Benefit Consumers, recommends states pursue full restructuring of their wholesale and retail electricity markets to capitalize on private sector investment and consumer demand for new products and services.
“Electric competition has worked. It provides economic, reliability, environmental and governance benefits. It can work much better with stronger pro-market reforms,” the authors of the paper conclude.
