Energy Deregulation (Question 3)

These data are likely pretty meaningless as a host of variables are not controlled from state to state. A true comparison would be to have alternate universes where in one universe a state deregulated and in another they did not. This experiment could very well have been run, but as yet we do not have access to the data from other universes, so I'll go with what is accessible.

I would think that centuries-old natural monopolies would be the less-efficient approach, and that could still be the case (see disclaimer above), but the data do not appear to indicate that deregulation is a magic path to drastically reducing energy prices. Nor does it appear that deregulation is a ploy by big business to gouge the poor as industrial prices are not affected much differently than residential prices.

I still feel like the grid has many drastic changes in store (particularly distributed generation and storage) as it modernizes and that deregulation will make innovation easier...but that's just my data-less gut feeling.

I'll probably still vote yes on 3.

Comparison of average electricity rates in 2016. All values measured in cents/kWh.




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