I’m a long-time reader and first-time emailer. I just read your blog post from earlier this month about privatizing public services like water and electric utilities.
My colleague Glen Lyons and I are developing a way to introduce more competition into the electricity sector, which some believe to be hopelessly uncompetitive. The idea is to allow new, large electricity customers to form new electricity networks. The change to state statute would officially introduce contestability into many markets, and we think actual rival networks would be built to satisfy new load. They would probably have to be large, electrically, meaning they would likely need to serve multiple large customers (today you can go off-grid, but only to supply yourself).
We aren’t necessarily trying to revolutionize the existing grid or change the way a typical residential customer receives electric service, although there may be beneficial spillover effects for all customers. And the idea is not brand new (I find myself agreeing with many of Wayne Crews’ views from the late 1990s), but the concept’s technological feasibility is at an all-time high, and the flood of new demand from data centers and new manufacturers is creating the right political environment to enact new policies.
Here is my description of the policy: https://www.cato.org/blog/what-would-consumer-regulated-electricity-look
Plus an interview we did recently: https://secondpower.substack.com/p/wacc
Here is the Cato bio of Travis Fisher.
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