I’m looking forward to today’s meeting with David O’Brien, Bridge Energy Group’s Director of Regulatory Strategy and Compliance. With his permission, I will record the discussion and squeeze it into my current book project, “Renewable Energy – Following the Money.” This is important, as I realized the other day that the book is a bit light in the subject arena of David’s expertise, i.e., the regulation of power utilities and the effects these have on innovation, especially, the implementation of efficiency, conservation, smart-grid, and renewables.
My belief going into this discussion is simple:
Our current system of utility regulation is a hodge-podge of arcane rules that sprang up on a regional, ad-hoc basis over the last 125 years. These rules were designed to minimize the cost of electricity, especially to large, industrial customers, while guaranteeing the power companies extremely attractive and perfectly predictable streams of profit. They need to be ripped out by the roots and replaced with something that’s simple, fair, and understandable, while encouraging all stake holders (generation, transmission, distribution, and load) to do the right thing, i.e.,
- Invest in smart-grid as the enabler of a modern and efficient energy network
- Offer incentives that minimize consumption, especially on-peak
- Retire coal plants as quickly and as practically as possible
- Replace them with a combination of renewable energy and storage.
From my initial conversations with Mr. O’Brien, I can see that he and I agree on a great deal of this, but I fully expect to learn exactly why my assessment here is an oversimplification, or lacks other features that would make it pragmatically implementable. That’s fine; I’m here to learn.
