[mehhh]

This kind of "free market" for electricity tends to drive up infrastructure costs needlessly (see Australia), while incentivizing bad behaviour by generation suppliers in the market (see Enron).

Public utilities generally provide a higher caliber of service at a lower price, with less administrative bloat.

[angry_octet]

Depends on the state, but in Vic the 'poles and wires' component, both in distribution (suburb) and transmission (pylons) costs are built into the fee that is charged for electricity supply (cost of connectivity) in a positive feedback loop: the more the companies invested, the more they could charge.

This was designed to avoid the 'run it into the ground's privatisation mentality, but it went the other way. Sadly, there was no price component for improving the network with new ideas, so it is still the same design as 100 years ago.

A system designed by accountants has done things accountants love, and nothing for electrical engineering or the citizens. Surprise.

The old SEC wasn't innovative or cheap, and neither is the privatised system. For incentives to be effective they have to be broken down to be smaller components rewarding specific conduct, and tweaked in response to system performance.

[probablypower]

The ownership of utilities and the cost of their infrastructure investments has nothing to do with the 'freeness' of electricity markets.

The performance of utilities is more a function of regulatory power and willingness to regulate rather than utility ownership.