Report’s recommended steps toward competition among electricity providers

by Adnan Alam

By Cronkite News Service

Here are steps toward restructuring Arizona’s electricity system recommended in a report for the Goldwater Institute by Adam N. Kleit of Pennsylvania State University and Stanley S. Reynolds of the University of Arizona:

    _ Require utilities to sell some generators and transmission lines to open the market for competition.

_ Eliminate regulations that prevent new electric providers from entering the market.

_ Allow customers to purchase electricity from any provider, including distributed service providers, which bypass the electrical grid by focusing on providing power in small areas to customers near generation plants.

_ Establish a nonprofit organization called an Independent System Operator, which would manage operations, schedule generation and maintain frequency and voltage to prevent power outages.