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by ohyeshedid 1946 days ago
> Unfortunately energy deregulation seems to disproportionately attract hucksters.

Deregulation does that in lots of markets, if not all of them. Paying via commissions does the same.

1 comments

Yes, I think especially so in industries the average person doesn’t understand well, like electricity spot markets.
The existence of hucksters is a big part of why regulation is created in the first place.

If you have to "de"regulation something, ask why it was regulated in the first place!

I’m not an anti-regulation guy by any means, but I do think there are cases where too much regulation is bad for customers. I don’t know enough about Texas energy markets to say if it’s the case here, but for example the deregulation of airline markets in the US was almost certainly good for customers on net.
It's mostly not been great. Higher prices than national DOE prices, less prepared for extreme events, and notably, no power-sharing agreement possible with the national grid since they've explicitly opted-out, and vehemently defended that choice. The Texas grid is less reliable and more expensive than either US East or US West.