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Comment by vegetablepotpie | Hacker News Reader

> utility companies are not embracing transmission expansion. They don’t want their power plants to face competition or their regional alliances to lose control over their networks

Utility monopolies are both vertically integrated, and horizontally integrated over a geographic region. Although this made sense in the 1920s, when this system was devised, it’s causing perverse incentives today. A healthy energy system may still include utilities, but in the 21st century they will not be able to be completely vertically integrated. We are going to need to see them give up generation and cede that to markets.

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Even then, I don't know how you solve the problem of transmission monopolies.

I think the only solution is when customer can buy from multiple generators and brokers

> Even then, I don't know how you solve the problem of transmission monopolies.

Lots of countries have nationalised the transmission network (while leaving the fully or partially privately run), which seems to work reasonably well.

Sometimes they can. Your provider probably sources power from multiple generators. Some consumers can get power from brokers who sell closer to market rate, rather than a levelized one. Customers usually save money, but pay newspaper-headline-catching premiums when energy is scarce.

To your point, I don't think making physical electrical conductors communal property would be anything less than a disaster. That conductors are most valuable when you have a grid makes the monopoly problem structural in my opinion.

I suspect from the indifference to the details and heavy-handed tone of the article that there is some particular agenda. Saying utilities are just greedy is not very compelling when the legal conditions on their operations are much more complex than most compabies to say the least.

Last mile electric transmission is mostly a natural monopoly. Very few customers are willing to pay for two separate connections, and routing overlapping electrical transmission networks is expensive in space and likely unsightly.

There's a few options for natural monopolies. Regulated standards and practices, and tarrifs can be effective. Public ownership can be effective. Mandating divestiture can be effective.

A market works pretty ok for generation. Although, a system operator that coordinates to provide stability seems like a requirement.

I think there's potential for a market approach in long distance transmission; the operator could identify unmet transmission needs (sector A often has excess/curtailed generation, sector B often has excess/curtailed loads; maybe we should increase transmission capacity through those links), and run a bid process to solve those needs. I think the high price to build long distance transmission means you do want to have coordinated planning though: you don't want to massively overbuild transmission capacity on one path.

Home solar + storage is a competitor essentially

not a realistic or economic one, especially without a grid to hedge against variability.

Electrical carriers could be forced to be to sell capacity at the market price.

market rate doesnt help too much, because it just ratchets up. this is basically how healthcare pricing in the US works already

Texas tried this. It predictably sucked: https://www.utilitydive.com/news/no-shining-example-texas-st...

I appreciate the way the Texas electricity market works. What about it sucks for you as a consumer?

Probably the usual whining about it struggling in the extreme of the unusually cold spells it has had recently.

After the private sector failed to winterize the grid, yes.

Compared to the California grid? Which seems to have blackouts every summer? Blackouts whenever it rains too much? Extraordinarily high costs?

I’d take the Texas electrical prices and the single large black out over what we have from PGE

Both Texas and California suffer from the same underlying cause: corporations putting profits over preventative maintenance and future-proofing.

Not all of California is on PG&E, however; Sacramento (where I grew up) has SMUD, and while it ain't perfect, either, it's leaps and bounds better than PG&E - almost as if being community-owned means there's a stronger incentive to actually meet the needs of said community.

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