A new report on competition in the electric utility industry says costly times may be ahead for residential ratepayers. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Chuck Quirmbach has details:
Transcript
A new report on competition in the electric utility industry says
costly times may be ahead for residential ratepayers. The Great Lakes
Radio Consortium’s Chuck Quirmbach has details:
Several states in the Midwest and elsewhere have tried to foster
competition in the utility industry. The National Association of State
Public Interest Research Groups says some business customers have been
able to save money by shopping around, but most residential electric
customers have not seen the same benefits. In fact, study author Tony
Dutzik says in some states with market restructuring, rate caps are
coming off.
“And there has been widespread concern in a number of those places that
when those rate caps do come off, consumers could be facing significant
increases in rates, and indeed has happened in a couple of instances
where rate caps have been lifted already.”
Dutzick says electric competition has also led to a lack of long-term
planning that could trigger more blackouts and other reliability
problems, but utilities in some states say to make the system more
reliable they’re trying to boost the supply of electricity. The
companies say rates in the region are still a relative bargain.
For the
Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Chuck Quirmbach.