حاکمیت مشتری: چرا انتخاب مشتری مکانیزم های ظرفیت اجرایی را مغلوب می سازد

In a functioning market, price performs a central role of rationing existing capacity to those who value it most and signaling the need for capacity investment. Together, price signals and demand response restrain price spikes when the system is under stress, reducing the political impulse to intervene with measures that erode incentives for capacity investment that would mitigate price excursions.

Demand response (DR) is gaining advocates as many come to understand DR's role in making the transition from regulation to competition in power markets less hazardous for customers and market participants. Two recent publications attest to that, both interestingly by regulators and both addressing the role of DR in ensuring capacity adequacy. One was produced by the staff of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission in response to a mandate under the Energy Policy Act of 2005. The other, from Mark Reeder of the New York Department of Public Service, appeared in The Electricity Journal. 1 Although both arrive at the same conclusions as we do about the effectiveness of DR in enabling capacity adequacy to be achieved economically, they have a different view of how we have arrived at our current perilous place (from a restructuring perspective), what problem the introduction of DR solves, and how quickly DR can be introduced and how to achieve its introduction. The only differences that are worthwhile highlighting are the issues of the speed at which DR can be introduced and how to get it done, since the others are only important in a historical sense and are unrelated to the common conclusion that DR has an important role to play in ensuring capacity adequacy. 2 We believe, as we discuss below, that it is feasible and beneficial to introduce DR in the short term, rather than taking the less aggressive views of the FERC staff and Mr. Reeder.