A story of power, pools, and parallels with the U.S. experience.
Carl J. Levesque is associate editor at Public Utilities Fortnightly.
When you log onto the website of Innogy America, an apropos quotation from American writer and editor Edgar Watson Howe floats, a few words at a time, into visibility to the electronic beat of what is known in radio formatting as smooth jazz:
A good scare ... is worth more to a man ... than good advice.
Obviously, the company is referring to the difficult situation in which deregulation in the United States finds itself. But the quote, while from an American writer, could suggest another sentiment originating in the Old World. That sentiment is that Innogy-formerly National Power, and one of the United Kingdom's two largest power producers-already has been there, done that in the United Kingdom, where industry regulators and participants are a full decade into privatization-yet still are working on getting it right.