The right competitive strategy for a restructured US electricity business

Conference · Sun Dec 31 04:00:00 EST 1995

OSTI ID:381231

Roach, C R ^[1]

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1. Boston Pacific Company, Inc., Washington, DC (United States)

With the hope of helping you to define your competitive strategy for the U.S. electricity business, I will discuss four topics: (1) the state of competition in the U.S. electricity business today; (2) the prospects for moving forward to retail competition; (3) what we get if we get retail competition; and (4) the key elements of a successful competitive strategy. Although some good progress has been made, the U.S. electricity business is far from fully open to competition. Indeed, protectionist utilities are mounting a successful counter-offensive to slow the move toward competition. However, to the extent that these utilities are led to make innovative offers and led to offer heavily discounted rates to large customers, that counter-offensive has within itself the seeds of its own defeat. That is, the more utilities innovate and cut prices in the face of competition, the more all regulators and legislators must see that competition works. Competitive power producers must include in their competitive strategies an aggressive effort to make this case for competition at both the state and federal levels. If attempts to slow competition actually make the case for going faster, then it is reasonable to base your competitive strategy on the assumption of a U.S. electricity business evolving to full wholesale and retail competition. For the near term, the right competitive strategy for a competitive electricity business involves accepting manageable merchant risk, making strategic acquisitions, mounting efforts to get close to customers, and investing in the right new technologies.

• OSTI ID: 381231
• Report Number(s): CONF-951208--
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY
COMPETITION
DEREGULATION
ELECTRIC POWER INDUSTRY