[morepork]

Assuming a competitive market, the outcome is essentially the same right? If the government builds more than would be economic for a private company they're paying the extra through construction costs/maintenance/financing that they would have been paying to incentivise the extra turbines.

[nicoburns]

> the outcome is essentially the same right?

Nope, the difference can be found in the profits made by the company that does in fact own and run the wind farms. The government could capture that should it wish to build them itself. This has been a hot topic recently with regard to fossil fuel energy generators who have been making large profits (in the billions) at the expense of people's energy bills.

[rtpg]

Except if the government owned it then there is no profit motive to begin with. At one point the number of intermediaries does start mattering (though I imagine that power suppliers are lower margin than other businesses)

There are a lot of details about... I suppose organizational theory? Which makes the decentralization nicer. But profits come from somewhere