Ed. Note: The author has been in the trenches as a consumer and free market advocate against the monopoly utilities in natural gas and particularly electricity. His “bottom lines” follow.
“It is time to end this marriage of vested privilege and authoritarian ideology and abolish the monopoly-regulator system.”
There is no such thing as a natural monopoly; government creates all monopolies. There was never any real justification for the regulation of the utility business. The existence of utility regulation is a triumph of political entrepreneurship by the incumbent utility companies to use the power of state government to gain dominance over their customers, to eliminate their more efficient competitors and to obtain recovery on their bad investments.
The system of politicized energy distribution consumes more resources than necessary to provide service. …
“We don’t need to employ government solutions to every perceived problem. Rather than spreading monopoly privileges to others. we need to be abolishing them. Georgia’s oil pipeline and high voltage systems were developed through market relationships. Extend the market, not the monopoly!”
Some time ago, Georgia Solar Utilities filed a petition with the Georgia Public Service Commission asking to be granted all of the rights and privileges given to Georgia Power, the state’s large, regulated utility. The GA PSC punted the issue to the General Assembly. Since then, the same sorts of schemes are popping up in other states where green developers seek the rights to sell green power directly to end users.
These “rights” included access to the use of the transmission and distribution systems within the state and access to capital at the same rates as obtained by Georgia Power.…
“While limited, customer choice and utility switching in Georgia has a large impact on the utility behavior and regulatory policies. Because of options, utilities try to treat customers like, well, customers. But it is time to promote markets in place of remaining governmental mandates and controls.”
The prevailing goals sought by those seeking reform in the power market are mandated access and common carriage for state regulated utilities. However, this alternative is at odds with unleashing entrepreneurship in this power market. The far better development would be the spontaneous, voluntary, indigenous, bottom-up approach for the development of market relationships rather than government mandates.
The state of Georgia has a system that is near such a market. With a few changes, a truly liberalized market is possible. The ninety different utilities in the state share the high voltage system in common.…