Investment

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.

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.
 

New Jersey Governor Chris Christie and the state legislature are considering a proposal that will add a new charge to consumer energy bills and threaten thousands of jobs. The implications of this legislation are simple: higher energy bills for consumers and the very real threat of layoffs by companies that will no longer be able to afford operating costs.

Technology innovation driven by market forces has unlocked abundant domestic supplies of natural gas from unconventional geographic formations, resulting in enormous consumer benefits– namely, lower electricity prices and cleaner air. This natural gas success story shows how market forces drive innovation better than regulation, and should serve as an important lesson for policy makers tempted to intervene in the markets in response to transient market price signals.
 

The federal government has the capability to transform America’s energy system within two decades through policies that stimulate energy technology innovation, according to a recent report by the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST).
 

Competitive electricity markets are driving innovation, stimulating new investment, and delivering customer choice across North America, concludes the 2010 Annual Baseline Assessment of Choice in Canada and the United States (ABACCUS).
 

Maine’s competitive electricity market is thriving, evidenced by several recently announced economic and environmental initiatives creating benefits for the state’s consumers.
 

A new report by the Center for American Progress (CAP) identifies the top 10 states for energy efficiency and credits market forces for stimulating innovation and investment. According to the report, Connecticut, California, Maryland, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, New York, Texas, North Carolina, New Jersey, and Ohio are the nation’s top energy efficiency markets – all but North Carolina have competitive retail electricity markets.
 

The Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA) Year in Review 2009 report detailed how despite the economic downturn installed solar power capacity climbed past 2,000 megawatts (MW), enough to power a city of 350,000 homes. The top two states in 2009 and cumulative installed capacity were states with competitive power markets.
 

A combination of hotter summers, an aging electrical grid and uneven adoption of smart grid technology has increased the need for electric infrastructure investment, according to a University of Minnesota research study cited by CNN reporter Thom Patterson.
 
COMPETE agrees significant investment is needed in our national grid to reach our nation’s sustainable energy goals and maintain electric reliability needs. But CNN missed an important opportunity to highlight how competitive electricity markets are helping ensure reliability and encourage innovation and investment while protecting consumers from the financial risk of poor or failed investment decisions.