The price of change [electricity supply industry deregulation]

The electric utilities in the USA are being deregulated by government order. Not all of the details have been worked out at this time, but some of the strengths and weaknesses are beginning to show. Unlike countries where government agencies owned and operated electric power systems and deregulation meant privatization, the US electric systems are predominantly private. They must be reorganized for deregulation. One difficulty comes from the fact that many separately owned and managed transmission systems must work together. Issues of reliability and responsibility for service provided by the transmission systems are not completely clear. Another issue is the separation of generation from transmission in companies where these functions were traditionally owned and managed together. The final test of whether deregulation of the US electric utilities is successful will be the perception of the population. These issues are discussed by the author in this paper.