Three Waves of U.S. Reforms: Following the Path of Wholesale Electricity Market Restructuring

New generation, storage, demand management, and smart grid technologies have the potential to make the grid of 2050 very different from today's power system. Can market designers keep up, and what do they need to pay attention to now? Before offering a few answers to these questions, we first give some historical perspective on the creation of markets for electric power and how those markets have been adapted to new needs.