Southeastern monopoly utilities are trying once again to convince federal energy regulators that they can be trusted with operating a centralized energy exchange market in the region. Duke Energy, Southern Company, the Tennessee Valley Authority, and other utilities filed an updated proposal this week in an attempt to convince federal regulators that they really do support competition.
In reality, these monopoly utilities are simply trying to maintain their stronghold over the Southeast energy market by creating the Southeast Energy Exchange Market (SEEM). Despite this flawed proposal already being rejected by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) in May, the utilities resubmitted their proposal to form a faux-competitive energy exchange market in the Southeast. The continued attempts by the utilities fail to provide what Southeast consumers really want - real energy choice in a truly free market.
In May, FERC said the SEEM proposal lacked transparency and told the monopolies to outline how customers would save money, how market pricing would be determined, and how the market power structure might change under SEEM.
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“SEEM utilities in response said they would increase transparency around the inner-workings of the market structure by providing "substantial" confidential data to FERC on a weekly basis, post public market auditor reports, and responses to other regulatory inquiries, among other things.
The utilities said they did not believe these changes were necessary in order to comply with federal regulations, but that the changes are intended to "respect and heed the message suggested by the [FERC] Staff questions," as well as intervenor concerns which raised similar issues.
Intervenors in FERC's proceeding on the SEEM proposal, including the Solar Energy Industries Association, Advanced Energy Economy, the Renewable Energy Buyers Alliance (REBA) and the Advanced Energy Buyers Group argued in comments filed in March that the proposal was actually a "loose power pool," and should therefore be subject to FERC regulation. Further, they and other groups echoed FERC’s comments that the proposal was lacking in transparency and argued the proposal would likely only strengthen utilities' stronghold on the Southeast market.
REBA and R Street Institute were also in support of a broader push to get FERC to organize the remaining regions in the U.S. that are not currently under a regional transmission organization. REBA is still reviewing the filing, but echoed previous comments that FERC should convene a technical conference with Southeast stakeholders to explore the option of forming an organized market in the region.
"[W]e support a competitive wholesale market in the SE to meet the ever-increasing customer demand for clean energy in the Southeast and to capture the full potential customer savings that are possible with a broader regional market," said Bryn Baker, director of policy innovation at REBA, in an email.”