On April 6, the Electric Energy Market Competition Task Force sent a final 191 page report to Congress on the "competition within wholesale and retail markets for electric energy in the U.S." as required by Section 1815 of the Energy Policy Act of 2005 (EPAct 05). The five member Task Force, consisted of a representative from each of the following agencies: Department of Justice; Federal Energy Regulatory Commission; Federal Trade Commission, Department of Energy; and Department of Agriculture.
The Task Force met on several occasions, consulted with experts and interested stakeholders in the industry, considered public comments, prepared a bibliography of the "public cost/benefits studies that have attempted to analyses the status of the wholesale market and retail competition", and looked at individual state case-studies with retail electricity programs. A draft report was issued in June, 13 2006.
In assessing competition, the Task Force asked the following question: "Has competition in wholesale markets for electricity resulted in sufficient generation supply and transmission to provide wholesale customers with the kind of choice that generally is associated with competitive markets?" The Task Force, however, concluded that they could not directly answer that question because "there were significant regional regulatory and structural differences in the electric power industry which make it difficult to identify and separate the determinants driving consumption and investment decisions and thus make it difficult for the Task Force to evaluate the degree to which more competitive markets have influenced such decisions." However, the Task Force instead made a number of "useful observations" in the following areas: wholesale market structures (bilateral market vs. RTO markets); generation investment (difficulty raising capital to build facilities), pricing and entry (expanding transmission capacity); and observations on retail market competition.
For a copy of the report click on the following link......(FERC Report on Competition).