Nice summary of the history, but we need a solution. The attempts at introducing market incentives into the provision of electricity have proven to be a nightmare. I see three altenatives:
1) Return to the regulated monopoly, a system in which the more money the investor spends the more money he makes, and hope that the state regulators can control this perverse incentive. A good feature of this system is that the incentive to over-build usually leads to very reliable grids.
2) A single public monopoly which in the US I would institute on a state wide basis. At least then the least efficient monopolies will be exposed.
3) A hierarchy of coops. The coop approach handles the natural monopoly issue by making the shareholder the ratepayer. Such shareholders have no incentive to over-charge themselves. An outline of such a system is at
Nice summary of the history, but we need a solution. The attempts at introducing market incentives into the provision of electricity have proven to be a nightmare. I see three altenatives:
1) Return to the regulated monopoly, a system in which the more money the investor spends the more money he makes, and hope that the state regulators can control this perverse incentive. A good feature of this system is that the incentive to over-build usually leads to very reliable grids.
2) A single public monopoly which in the US I would institute on a state wide basis. At least then the least efficient monopolies will be exposed.
3) A hierarchy of coops. The coop approach handles the natural monopoly issue by making the shareholder the ratepayer. Such shareholders have no incentive to over-charge themselves. An outline of such a system is at
https://gordianknotbook.com/download/the-repower-plan/