Innovation

Pennsylvania’s competitive electricity market crossed a major milestone this week, with 1 million customers actively shopping and choosing their electricity provider. Since rate caps expired across the state at the beginning of the year, nearly 300,000 new accounts were established, the clearest indication yet that Pennsylvania customers are embracing competition.

Competitive electricity markets around the United States promote and accelerate innovation and will continue to foster future innovation, according to a white paper released today by KEMA, a leading global energy consulting, testing and certification firm. The paper was commissioned by COMPETE. The white paper, along with the economic and environmental benefits of competitive markets, were topics of discussion at an event held this afternoon on Capitol Hill.
 

This week, the COMPETE Coalition welcomed Tendril, Inc., the Energy Platform company, to the COMPETE Coalition Board of Directors.

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.

Electricity bills in New Jersey are falling and Lee Solomon, President of the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities, credits competition. Solomon cited the state’s tenth annual electricity auction for Basic Generation Service, as well as favorable market conditions, as the primary factors behind lowered costs for residents and businesses.

In the week since his State of the Union speech – where the topics of job creation, innovation, and clean energy, all which are hallmarks of competition, were a focus – President Obama has been on the road promoting specific initiatives to help achieve his broader energy agenda. On Thursday, he’ll visit Penn State University to acknowledge their ongoing efforts in energy innovation and highlight the importance of greater investment in clean energy.

 
Today’s Baltimore Sun features an op-ed by COMPETE Co-Chairman Federico Pena. His column highlights, among other things, the myriad benefits Maryland’s competitive electricity market has delivered to the state – from efficiency, innovation and reliability to greater customer choice and competitive prices. Since introducing competition in the late 1990s, Maryland has been one of the greatest success stories around the country. The full column, which details that success, follows…
 

Recent calls for Maryland to revert from a competitive electricity market to a monopoly system may be good-intentioned, but they are quite misguided. Innovation has replaced the inefficiencies of the old monopoly system, giving customers new choices, competitive prices and an efficient, reliable power supply.
 

A new study shows that electricity pricing policies may become a major obstacle to electric vehicle (EV) affordability, but time-of-use pricing – a hallmark of competitive markets – could be the solution.
 

Few consumers when they purchase an airline ticket, pay their electric bill or turn on their gas stove give a passing thought to the money they are saving or the innovation and convenience made possible thanks to Alfred E. Kahn.  But Kahn, an economist who died December 27 at the age of 93, had a pervasive influence in turning back nearly a century of consumer-costly price regulation in industries that span not just transportation and energy, but almost the entire economy.  He was far more than merely the “father of airline deregulation,” as most obituaries are heralding him.