Arizona

The movement to restore Michigan’s competitive electricity market is growing, with state legislators and businesses taking action in the fight to roll back a poorly conceived statewide cap on competition. 
 

A new staff report from Arizona Corporation Commission (ACC) urges a full evaluation of the state’s electricity market given the benefits competition could offer the state’s consumers, economy and environment. The report, issued last week, comes as the ACC considers revising state rules to introduce competition to its power market.
 
Competition would create multiple economic benefits for Arizona consumers, according to ACC staff:
 

Open Arizona's electricity market to competition.  That’s the message from Andrew Kleit, a professor of energy and environmental economics at Pennsylvania State University, in an op-ed he authored this week for the Arizona Republic.

Like many states, Arizona is facing a demand crisis.  Some experts indicate that the state will need 3,000 megawatts of additional generating capacity by 2019, nearly a 50 percent increase in just 10 years.  In addition, Kleit notes that Arizona "has ambitious plans to make its electricity grid 'greener,' which will require significant investment in solar and wind power."

A key Arizona legislator is pressing to reopen the state’s electric markets to full competition in order to spur job growth, reduce emissions, encourage innovation and reduce costs for consumers. Representative Lucy Mason of Prescott, chair of the House Water and Energy Committee, recently held a legislative forum that cited a report by the Goldwater Institute to urge competition in the state’s electricity market.

The Goldwater Institute report, Opening the Grid: How to Recharge Arizona's Electricity System for the 21st Century, was authored by two respected economists and finds that electricity restructuring has been successful in Britain, Texas and Pennsylvania, and would work in Arizona if the state’s electricity market was open to competition.