Electricity Facts among the deregulated states

What are the real facts concerning a possible failed energy deregulation process in the United States?

Facts among each deregulated state in the United States vary. Because the facts vary it is important to read them all and find the inconsistencies and make sense of it all.

The question is: Does Electricity Deregulation help a state or hurt it?

Many say it hurts it and for good reason. Did you know there has yet to be a single state that has seen a positive competitive rate price after deregulation that looked better then where electric rates were at prior to deregulation. Why is this?

Phenominal Growth

We are seeing a phenominal growth in the consumption of energy by all sources of energy generation. This is one contributor to a coincidental spike in electricity prices around the same time energy consumption has never been in more demand. This chart show where energy generation has come from and gone too at the present.

Need more generation plants

Natural Gas as well as most other generation fuels have added more generation plants and produced more energy and the demand has requested it. The problem is that we are now becoming a cleaner country and many states no longer allow for coal production at any larger scale then where it is at. Natural gas remains the cleaner energy generation source. Because Natural Gas is hard to move around the country and keep adequate supplies in storage it remains very volatile in price. The price spikes happened about the same time the states deregulated. Without a good bearing on Natural Gas prices it has caused electricity providers who have to insure they do not go under by pricing their energy product at an unprofitable rate sometimes price higher then is called for.

Whose fault is it?

The electric providers cannot avoid this at times because it means investor dollars and ultimately whether or not they will be able to stay in business. When companies were regulated by the government they could have government money pumped into the company if it started to go under due to prices rising beyond their ability to maintain the generation facility.

Case Study on Generation Plants

As you can see, when Texas deregulated electricity in 2002 was also around the same time natural gas volatility caused some large price spikes. This in turn had a big affect on electricity prices in many parts of the country. If the future goes as we have seen in the past the up and coming affordable energy of nuclear will soon surpass natural gas as the generation fuel of choice.

Rough time with the deregulation process

Most states have had a rough time with deregulation but this way of thought may just be because of frustration with energy costs which caused people to blame the monopoly providers which spurred on a positive notion to deregulate which then backfired when prices did not get better. These prices being worse off then before caused people to go to blaming the deregulation process instead of the prior monopolies when we should all now know it has more to do with the slow growth and progress of energy generation and consumption.