Regulators to Blame? How Competitive Metering Has Failed

Fortnightly Magazine - November 15 2001
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How Competitive Metering Has Failed


 

It's time for regulators to face facts and move forward.

Advanced metering-hourly data retrieved daily-and price signals could have prevented California's energy crisis. So says the Congressional Budget Office, which said rolling blackouts would have been averted,1 and the Electric Power Research Institute, which found that electricity costs in California would have been between as much as 19 percent lower in 2000 with real-time metering in place.2 Groups from the Bush Administration to the National Governor's Association to the Consumer Federation of America are calling for real-time meters or demand response programs predicated on them-even in electricity markets without retail competition.3 On the cost side, McKinsey forecasts consumer savings of $10 billion to $15 billion per year resulting from time-based pricing.4 And Puget Sound Energy's highly successful 300,000 customer voluntary residential time-of-day program is yet another in a long line of evidence proving that consumers do, in fact, lower electricity demand in response to voluntary time-based prices.5 ()

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