“The ‘virtual power plant’ is the end-state of electricity interventionism, where government-subsidized wind, solar, and batteries–and in-home regulated (rationed) electricity use, via ‘smart meters’–replace consumer choice and taxpayer neutrality in a free marketplace.”

Lynne Kiesling has long sold herself as a freedom-loving classical liberal. Except she is the opposite when it comes to her specialty, electricity markets. This social media post is illustrative.

The “virtual power plant” is the end-state of electricity interventionism, where government-subsidized wind, solar, and batteries–and in-home regulated (rationed) electricity-use, via “smart meters”–replace consumer choice and taxpayer neutrality in a free marketplace.

Tomorrow’s post, “Free Market Electricity,” will outline the worldview of the missing-in-action alternative to Kiesling’s politically correct statism.

Appendix A: Critical Posts on Kiesling and Electricity

Electricity Statism Conference: Kiesling Rides High (June 25, 2024)

The Great Texas Blackout of 2021: Triumph of the Unreliables (February 20, 2024)

Kiesling vs.…

Giberson: “I’ve seen a lot of mention of high electric power prices lately. Some blame wind and solar energy, others are blaming retail customer choice (i.e. “restructuring” or less accurately “deregulation”). Mostly it appears the analysts do not take inflation into account. Real retail prices of electricity in the US are on average about where they were a decade ago, and below the recent peak in 2008.”

Bradley: But what about US and state taxpayers footing part of the bill for the duplication of Texas generation? Factor that in and the price spikes when renewables fail and a wounded gas-and-coal industry is left.

And don’t forget–electricity policy reform is not only regulatory restructuring/re-regulation as eliminating the franchise and rate regulation for utilities. A real free market….

Bradley: This study needs to be redone with some of the comments I made above, starting with hassle costs from the whole switchover (which were not reflected in price) and the total costs of wind/solar/batteries not reflected in rates (born by US taxpayers).…

“This conference is not about free market reform; it is about centrally planned wholesale markets for electricity, as well as open-ended subsidies for wind, solar, and batteries, all at the expense of thermal generation and free-market order.”

The title says it all: Integrating Science and Law & Economics to Inform Energy Policy in a Decarbonized Future.” And the conference is loaded with electricity statists and ‘clean’ energy activists, all experts (as in expert failure and scientism), with plans to tweak/expand government planning in a failed, failing government system. In political terms, it is Biden’s “all of government” all the way.

The premise of the two-day conference is flawed. “Science” in the title suggests the scientific (physical and social) debate behind Net Zero/forced energy transformation. “Law & Economics” is a discipline that certainly questions the vague idea of “decarbonization.”…

“A free market in electricity is based on private property rights and voluntary exchange.”

– Michael Giberson, May 19, 2024

It’s a start. It took me a few dozen tries, but the definition has come from a (not-so) free market electricity advocate, Mike Giberson. Maybe Lynne Kiesling, woman of system and “The Queen of Electricity Markets,” will be next.

Fake free marketeers at the Niskanen Center and at R Street Institute are a plague on sound public policy analysis regarding electricity and other climate/energy issues. The sad case of Jerry Taylor of Cato and Niskanen is recounted here and here. But the problem also is with the energy specialists at R Street, including senior fellow Giberson. (See yesterday’s post on Devin Hartman, Giberson’s boss.)

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Mike Giberson knows his energy stuff and was/is free market in many areas, except for electricity.…