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Gas and electric companies feel the impact of deregulation on their operations and customer service like telecom service providers. Gas and electric companies face declining markets, increasing competition, technological obsolescence, increased price volatility, commoditization of products, and downsizing. Gas and electric companies that provide superior customer service and build customer loyalty will remain competitive in the future.

California's decision to change their utilities regulation strategy to one based on performance-based regulation is being watched closely by the rest of the nation. California adopted retail wheeling to give consumers more choice, hoping to lower prices. The next step was the unbundling of electric services to allow for more targeted marketing, which will allow the market to determine capacity and promote conservation. It remains to be seen if the industry can remain vertically integrated in such a marketplace., The California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) issued an order on April 20 proposing radical reform of the state's utility regulation. Specifically, the order would replace traditional cost-of-service regulation with competition [...]

Regulators should not exert least-cost and spot pricing demands on the public utilities market without allowing incentives for long-term, fixed-price contracts. Regulators should pursue unbundled services and rely on deregulated market forces to govern the utilities market. Long-term contracts should be preapproved and incentives, rather than regulations, should be used to achieve efficiency of cost and production. Absolute reliance on spot-pricing could lead to extreme fluctuations in pricing and would dissuade long-term investments., A trio of tenets state regulators can use to maximize benefits from natural gas and emission allowance markets. A DRAMATIC CHANGE HAS OCCURRED IN RECENT YEARS IN THE ROLE MARKETS [...]

Deregulation in the public utilities industry could follow the same patterns set by the deregulation of the telecommunications industry. Vertically integrated companies have become a target of divestiture, and independent power producers (IPPs) have been allowed into the electric utilities market the way that regional holding companies (RHCs) were established in the telecommunications market. The government continues to restrict competition between IPPs, RHCs and the more institutional service providers in their industries. However, their competition with one another is becoming more prevalent., IN THE MAJOR INDUSTRIES HISTORICALLY CLASSIFIED AS PUBLIC UTILITY, COMPETITION, PROMOTED BY A VARIETY OF GOVERNMENT POLICIES, IS NOW A PERVASIVE INFLUENCE. A decade ago, antitrust law enforcers consummated a [...]

The Spanish electricity market is controlled by four regionally based companies, Iberdrola, Union Fenosa, Hidroelectrica del Cantrabrico and Endesa. The Spanish government have introduced legislation to liberalise the electricity market in order to reduce costs by at least 8% by the year 2001. The Electricity law initially only allows competition to supply companies using 15 GWh in 1998 but by 2007-8 all electricity users, including domestic households, will be able to use the supply market. Some 39% of the generation market is produced by coal with nuclear power taking a 34% share.

The 1997 World Energy Engineering Congress in Atlanta, GA, on Nov 19, 1997 included a panel discussion on the impact of utility deregulation. While one panel member claimed that deregulation is an occurrence that will take place in all utilities, another commented that it is a process that involves a number of significant phases. The panel members included such industry experts as Energywiz Pres Lindsay Audin, New Energy Venture VP Dan Griffiths and EUA Cogenex director of project development Manny Patino.

The success of the transition to a deregulated and fully competitive electric industry will be contingent on the recovery of historical costs by electric utilities with the greatest financial stakes in the previous system. Having borne the brunt of infrastructural, production and transmission costs under a regulated system, utilities will resist deregulation unless some form of compensation accompanies reform., Much of the impetus for the movement to competitive power markets is a result of the tremendous variance in energy prices across the country. Large commercial and industrial customers are [...]

State utility regulators are weighing the potential advantages and disadvantages of retail- wheeling in the electric utilities industry. Retail-wheeling refers to the provision of power by a utility outside its service territory by using the transmission network of another utility. Proponents think that retail-wheeling will improve the structure and provision of power by utilities while universally lowering the price of electricity. Detractors believe retail- wheeling will create a monopolistic industry under which the provision of power will become unreliable and the consumer will be victimized., Retail wheeling has hit the electric utility industry by storm, as evidenced by the fact that more than 20 states currently have reviews, investigations or pilot programs under way. No [...]

Deregulation in the public utilities industry has brought a host of benefits. Rates have dropped due in part to the increased efficiency, investment risk has shifted from ratepayers to developers and technological innovations have allowed for greater environmental awareness. However, power purchasing arrangements continue to hamper the deregulation process, and a lack of industry cooperation puts both independent power producers and public utility companies at a disadvantage when dealing with Congress and foreign markets., Seven years ago, when I joined the National Independent Energy Producers (NIEP) as its first executive director, I was daunted by the task in front of me. I had a [...]

Public utilities companies will need to alter their marketing and management strategies to remain competitive after deregulation. Customers' desire for value-added products must be met by an industry that has long enjoyed a monopoly. Individual companies must bolster their information networks to monitor and respond to competitive changes within the industry. Additionally, utilities companies must reform their style of management to promote greater efficiency., LAST YEAR, FORTUNE MAGAZINE RAN AN ARTICLE CALLED 'DINOSAURS?,' DESCRIBING HOW TODAY'S CORPORATE POWERHOUSES CAN BE TOMORROW'S BUSINESS SCHOOL AUTOPSY. The article focused on conditions at IBM, GM, and Sears, [...]

Water customer champion the Ofwat National Customer Council (ONCC) has warned that domestic and small business customers are not ready for retail competition. It weighed up whether the long-term benefits [...]

by Karma Ockenden The government has lost the political will to open up the water market to competition and is set to disappoint those eager for change when it publishes [...]

EU energy commissioner, Loyola de Palacio, has made clear the European Commission's intention to make new proposals on electricity and gas liberalisation. In a speech at the 8th Handesblatt annual [...]

On May 24, the U.K. became the first country to offer all gas and electricity customers--industrial, commercial, and residential--a choice of suppliers. The government claims that residential gas customers who [...]

Many parallels exist between regulated industries. Universal service riders used to fund accessibility mimic those of the telecommunications industry. Emergent service fees levied by gas and electric utilities resemble trends [...]

In just over fourteen months time the final stage of opening up the UK utilities industries to competition will begin. While the gas industry is about to launch phase two [...]

Public utilities and conservationist groups have joined forces in opposition to an Ohio bill that would institute retail deregulation in the state's utility industry. Public utilities oppose the plan because it would topple their monopoly control over the industry. Conservationists oppose it because they fear price competition will stall investments in environment-friendly technology. State consumers have not come forward in support of the bill even though they stand to benefit the most from the deregulations., A retail wheeling bill, introduced in the Ohio legislature by Rep. Ron Amstutz on February 28, has met with powerful and effective opposition from utilities and from conservation and environmental [...]

Antitrust law is becoming increasingly important in the public utilities industry as deregulation continues. Antitrust law must be used to protect facilities, such as transmission wires, that are fundamental to all utility companies and ensure that they do not become the exclusive property of any one utility. It must also be used to ensure fair access to the market and reasonable pricing schemes. Prudent application of antitrust law in the public utilities market will foster better competition and serve the needs of the consumer., With the growth of a more competitive bulk-power supply market, the antitrust laws--both federal and state--become of greater significance. There is a need to protect equitable availability of 'essential facilities' [...]

Deregulation in the public utilities industry has created great uncertainty among investors. Deregulation will likely result in lower rates and consequently lowered profits. Furthermore, subsequent regulations are likely to affect the industry in ways investors cannot yet forecast. Increased efficiency in electric energy production might further drive down rates by creating energy surpluses. Prospects for investors are not good. Deregulation may result in temporary disruption or large-scale bankruptcy., That increasing competition will put pressure on utility earnings is axiomatic. It will reduce the market power of utilities, and that will cut earnings. The extent and duration of this [...]

The growing trend toward competition in the public utilities industry is demonstrating tangible savings to both the industry and the consumer. The costs of managed regulation are difficult to assess, but the industry's first steps toward deregulation already suggest that it represents far greater savings. Estimated savings for 80 sample utilities would be $31 billion. The call for deregulation is expected to grow as such figures become more widely known and proven., Assessing the costs of utility regulation has never been a particularly rewarding endeavor. The difficulty has stemmed from an inability to evaluate with confidence how the industry would behave in [...]

NEW RESEARCH FROM THE Chartered Institute of Marketing has investigated how the deregulated, competitive environment in the utilities sector has forced the UK's multi-utilities companies to become marketing focused. Entitled [...]

France's government is inching toward deregulation of its natural gas and electric power sectors. The government commissioned Claude Mandil, general manager of energy and raw materials at the Ministry of [...]