ISO/RTO Council

The recent American Wind Energy Association (AWEA) Year End 2009 Market Report showed that the U.S. wind industry set new records for installed wind capacity by adding nearly 10,000 megawatts of new capacity in 2009. Again, as in past years, competitive markets are leading the way in developing this clean and renewable energy resource.

The report underscores wind’s contribution to our national energy portfolio, and the role competitive markets have played in spurring new capacity. America now enjoys 35,000 megawatts of installed wind power generation, nearly 2 percent of our total national energy capacity. Four of the top 10 (and two of the top three) highest-volume states in installed capacity are competitive markets. In addition, the total combined installed capacity of the 17 competitive markets states is 16,500 megawatts - nearly half of the nation’s total installed capacity.

“Fair, transparent, open and efficient competitive markets are what we really need to emphasize in this country,” Jon Wellinghoff, Chairman of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, said at a recent energy policy forum examining how to meet energy demand while reducing carbon emissions. “I think if we did that in a comprehensive way a lot of these problems would take care of themselves.”

The facts support Chairman Wellinghoff.

“I don’t understand what this is designed to accomplish," John Shelk, President and CEO of the Electric Power Supply Association, told Platts in response to the latest effort by the American Public Power Association (APPA) to deny American consumers the economic and environmental benefits of organized competitive electricity markets.

We agree. Trotting out its tired and misleading compilation of Energy Information Administration (EIA) statistics, and continuing to conflate state-regulated retail and federally regulated wholesale power markets, APPA and an assortment of activist groups called on Congress and federal energy regulators to look into allegedly “high electricity prices” in organized electricity markets.