Retail access pilot programs: Where`s the beef?
Retail access pilot programs are today`s pet rock. Unless they are well-defined and incorporated in a carefully designed experimental approach, retail access pilots will serve only to delay real change while creating the illusion that we`re actually learning something. Starting with the initiative of the New Hampshire Public Utilities Commission and that state`s legislature, a flurry of interest in retail access pilot programs has developed. Exactly what experiment these programs are designed to implement remains some-what unclear, however. In this paper, the authors attempt to define the set of possible experimental goals and assess the potential benefits of this kind of experiment. They feel that there is less here than meets the eye, that these programs will either test trivial propositions or provide no real test of interesting questions. This does not mean the activity is worthless, but that a little care and honesty about the nature of these programs will go a long way to sort out what they can and cannot teach an interested public policy maker or corporate executive. The authors begin the discussion in Section I, looking briefly at the mother of all retail pilot programs, the New Hampshire experiment. Many issues raised by this experiment are generic. In Section II they discuss the time frame and scale of retail pilots. Section III addresses technical and administrative issues, where most of the substance may actually lie. In Section IV they discuss some examples of how a retail pilot might be linked to other objectives. The authors summarize their views in Section V.
- OSTI ID:
- 482526
- Journal Information:
- Electricity Journal, Vol. 9, Issue 10; Other Information: PBD: Dec 1996
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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