Regulators to Blame? How Competitive Metering Has Failed

How Competitive Metering Has Failed

 

It's time for regulators to face facts and move forward.

Advanced metering-hourly data retrieved daily-and price signals could have prevented California's energy crisis. So says the Congressional Budget Office, which said rolling blackouts would have been averted,¹ and the Electric Power Research Institute, which found that electricity costs in California would have been between as much as 19 percent lower in 2000 with real-time metering in place.² Groups from the Bush Administration to the National Governor's Association to the Consumer Federation of America are calling for real-time meters or demand response programs predicated on them-even in electricity markets without retail competition.³ On the cost side, McKinsey forecasts consumer savings of $10 billion to $15 billion per year resulting from time-based pricing.⁴ And Puget Sound Energy's highly successful 300,000 customer voluntary residential time-of-day program is yet another in a long line of evidence proving that consumers do, in fact, lower electricity demand in response to voluntary time-based prices.⁵ ()