Electricity Markets and Public Policy

Electricity Markets and Public Policy

Over the past decade, changes in federal and state policies have given electricity generators increased opportunities to compete to sell energy in wholesale markets and directly to households, businesses, and factories. In studying the economics of electricity markets and experiences with competition in the United States and around the world, RFF researchers have found that opening electricity markets may prove to be harder than prior efforts to introduce competition into other formerly regulated industries.

Alternating Currents: Electricity Markets and Public Policy covers the economic and environmental issues presented by attempts to replace regulation with competition in the electricity sector, with emphasis on the crucial balance between competition and reliability.

This RFF Press book by RFF Senior Fellows Timothy Brennan and Karen Palmer, along with colleague Salvador A. Martinez, provides stakeholders with the analysis needed to make sound decisions about the future of the US electricity system, especially in the wake of the massive blackout on August 14th, 2003.

In their 1996 book, A Shock to the System, Brennan and Palmer, along with Senior Fellows Raymond Kopp, Alan Krupnick, Dallas Burtraw, and colleague Vito Stagliano, examine the specific challenges faced in restructuring America's electricity industry.