It seems they would like to just get paid for customer service, transmission, and distribution of electricity. They are encouraging customers to buy the actual electricity from someone else.
Is this a sign that these large utility companies would like to shut down their coal-fired and nuclear power plants? The cost of the electricity generated by those plants is low compared with other sources of generation. Are the owners of coal fired plants under so much pressure because of proposed EPA regulations, mercury emissions, global warming, etc? Power from these plants has been sold to other electric utilities in the grid because it is cheaper than power from other sources, like small gas fired plants.
How are the smaller companies competing for the generation business generating their electricity? Can the possibly meet demand? Are we looking forward to an era of blackouts and brownouts?
And how would this system encourage conservation, when the smaller companies want business from those who use the most electricity?
This sounds like an oxymoron. How can a utility get out of the power generation business? Someone must build and run power plants. If they don´t, they will have to BUY it, which is the same thing, only more expensive.
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On the other hand, it makes sense, since it passes the generation burden to someone else and the utility can concentrate on more administrative tasks.
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The price of electriciy is not set by the EPA or anybody else, it is being bid up at auction. The bidders commit to a certain amount of power for certain periods of time during certain dates. It is a market, in the truest sense, although there are "manipulations", particularly with peak power.
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