Competitive Electricity Markets

Recently, the Houston Chronicle featured an op-ed by COMPETE Co-Chair Federico Peña. In his column, Peña highlights the benefits that Texas’ competitive electricity market has delivered to the state, including innovative products and services such as demand response, smart meters, intelligent grids, and transparency in price and usage.

Since the state’s electricity market was open to competition in the late 1990s, Texas’ energy marketplace has matured into one of the most successful in the nation.

The full column can be found at: http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/editorial/outlook/7524989.html

Today, COMPETE National Co-Chair Federico Peña, former Secretary of both the U.S Department of Energy and U.S. Department of Transportation, addressed more than 400 energy executives, regulators, energy buyers, and investors from across the country at the 22nd Annual KEMA Executive Forum in San Antonio, TX. Secretary Peña highlighted how competition in electricity markets is fostering innovation, including demand response services, smart meters, intelligent grids and renewable energy growth. He also discussed the findings of a KEMA white paper commissioned by COMPETE – released in Feb. 2011 – that highlights the correlation between competition and innovation.

COMPETE National Co-Chair Federico Peña, who served as U.S. Secretary of Energy and U.S. Secretary of Transportation under President Clinton, will address attendees at the 22nd Annual KEMA Executive Forum at 12:30 p.m. CDT on Thursday, April 7 in San Antonio, TX. Secretary Peña will highlight how competition in electricity markets is fostering innovation, including demand response services, smart meters, intelligent grids and renewable energy growth. He will also discuss the findings of a KEMA white paper commissioned by COMPETE – released in Feb. 2011 – that highlights the correlation between competition and innovation.
 

New power generation, innovation, greater use of renewable energy, and competitive pricing are the hallmarks of competitive electricity markets in Texas, Mitchell Schnurman, a business columnist for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, highlighted in a recent column.

Members of the Arizona Corporation Commission (ACC) – who oversee the state’s utility rates – currently have a docket on the table to open the state’s electricity market to competition.  As electricity demand in the state will grow 3.5 percent annually, according to a report by Arizona PIRG, the time for greater consideration of, and need for, competition in Arizona is now.

Next Thursday at the Capitol Visitors Center in Washington, D.C., KEMA will release a white paper
commissioned by the COMPETE Coalition exploring how competitive electricity markets promote and accelerate innovation.

California’s cap on the number of customers allowed to select their power supplier is blocking consumers from access to competitively priced electricity and alternative energy products.

Connecticut continues to see consumers in the state’s retail electricity markets benefit from competitive suppliers. Restructuring Today recently reported commercial and industrial (C&I) account shopping in the Connecticut Light & Power (CL&P) territory reached another new high in December. Marketers added more than 15,000 accounts, of which nearly 1,000 came from C&I, which saw shopping rise from 54 percent to 55percent. The residential market saw a bump of 2.4 percentage points.

The number of competitive power suppliers continues to increase in Maryland. Multiple new providers have entered the state’s competitive electricity market, and consumers are responding as evidenced by increased switching rates.

The percentage of retail electricity customers switching to competitive energy suppliers increased in the first quarter of 2010, according to new state-level data compiled by Restructuring Today. 
 
Reports from Ohio, Connecticut, and Maine combined with similar growth in four other key markets across the country highlight how competitive markets are delivering lower-cost, competitively priced electricity to consumers.