BLACKOUTS AND OVERSUPPLY OR REGULATORY PLANNING AND COOPERATION.

Policymakers in the United States have asserted broad goals to reduce electricity rates by increasing market competition, increase the use of renewable sources Of electricity, and upgrade the US transmission system to accommodate intermittent renewable energy sources. When policy goals are not well integrated with local and national regulatory policies, periods of too little or too much electricity on the grid result. This article analyzes the restructuring of the California electricity market in the late 1990s and the 2012 periods of oversupply on the Bonneville Power Administration grid as case studies in regulatory failure, then looks to the current smart grid upgrades to the national transmission system to recommend more cooperative regulatory policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]