[epistasis]

This is very true, and I think an underappreciated point specifically for utilities, so I hope you don't mind if I expand quite a bit on your excellent point. What "deregulation" means in Texas is that there's a competitive market for electricity generation, and that those who invest in the cheapest methods of production can make profits, and those who made poor investments can lose money. This "deregulation" is merely what we think of as "normal" in market economies, where normal competition allows for greater economic efficiency.

We are in an era where clean energy is the cheapest energy, and the biggest impediment to the transition is merely being allowed to put the energy on the grid. Go around the country, and the queue to get interconnected to the grid is one of the biggest stumbling blocks. Another huge stumbling block is the procedure for acquiring new electricity generation assets, typically done through IRPs for five years out, based on out-dated data. This is the "standard" regulatory regime in the US, though its highly fractured and there are many many variations.

In this highly "regulated" environment, the corporations have already completely captured the market, and have often bribed the Public Utility Commissions to achieve their own goals.

Deregulation in Texas means less corporate capture, more of a chance for smaller startups to deploy, and a faster energy transition now that the cheapest technology is clean technology.

[chowells]

I can't believe people are using Texas as a positive example of deregulation after they demonstrated quite enthusiastically how broken their system is. A competent electrical system can handle sustained freezing temperatures without massive blackouts. Texas can't. (No, I can't believe they'll do any better next time. There were no market consequences for incompetence.)

[epistasis]

IMHO it's not useful to look at a huge and complex system and say "it's all good" or "it's all bad." Texas has a great system for choosing which energy to deploy, but not such a great system for ensuring capacity. The aspects of their system that speed the energy interchange are not the same aspects that cause deadly blackouts.

Texas is an energy-only market right now (payments only for kWh delivered), but adding a capacity market could help (payments for ensuring the ability to deliver electricity), and capacity markets are common in other energy markets around the US. And another thing that would have helped even more clearly is cleaning house at the ISO that didn't follow any of the guidelines from the massive outage from nuclear and gas that happened more than a decade ago. But the ISO failing to do what it's supposed to do is the regulators not doing their job. Regulators regulating what they have the power to do is clearly important in any system.

[dingnuts]

if one blackout from a freak storm in thirty years is your litmus test, I'd like to know where you live because I'm willing to bet the track record isn't substantially different -- except maybe in how it was covered.