Lynne Kiesling
Jerry Ellig had a commentary in the Richmond Times-Dispatch last week about retail electricity choice in Virginia. The state’s governor and legislature, ignoring evidence that shows the benefits of retail choice and that customers actually, actively want retail choice, have decided that customers can’t be trusted to make that determination for themselves. They are debating a bill that would eliminate retail competition for most Virginia consumers.
Competition might even make some new power-plant construction unnecessary. Competition could facilitate dynamic pricing options that would vary retail electricity prices as the cost of producing electricity changes over the course of the day. Like cell-phone plans that offer free night and weekend minutes, dynamic electricity pricing would let consumers save money by moving some of their electricity use to times when electricity is cheap to produce, such as late at night.
With less electricity demanded at “peak” times, fewer new power plants would be needed, and prices would be lower.
He very kindly quotes me, which I of course appreciate … If you live in Virginia and you value free markets, retail choice, and competition, now is a good time to share that preference with your elected representatives.