I have been invited to be a panelist for ISO New England’s
Consumer Liaison Group meeting on December 5th. The panelists have been asked to give their
thoughts on Impacts of ISO and Government Decision Making on Retail Rates.
As you may know, ISO – NE is the non-profit market monitor
of New England’s power grid. Their job is to make sure that the lights stay
turned on, as well as make sure that the wholesale power market is operating in
a fair and transparent way.
The impacts of how the power market is legislated, planned, and
monitored certainly have a powerful impact on retail power rates. The real
impact however, is not so much on the retail rate, but on the end user. The
impacts are on family owned businesses here in New England, on business
decision makers that are asking themselves questions like: Should we hire more
people? Should we expand our product? Should we drop our prices to compete more
effectively? Should we cut a shift? How low can our margin drop before our
business is still viable?
Granted, we are existing in an environment in which there is
a true energy paradigm shift. The decisions being made today about how we how
create energy, and how we consume power are ones that will have long lasting
impact. Questions about the value of renewables and distributed generation, of
the true cost of carbon and fossil fuels, of the investment in our power grids infrastructure
and security are deep and inevitably will create uncertainty for business
decision makers.
The uncertainty before us, unfortunately, is not just
limited to the production and consumption of energy. Coupled with deep
political and economic uncertainty we have created an environment for business decision
makers that is very difficult to function in. Our leaders owe them more than
deep uncertainty.December 5th Meeting ISO New England
