Californians Call to Reopen Electric Choice

January 2003

Californians had electric choice and they want it again. Despite the chaos in the wholesale market, the retail electric market has successfully served Californians for almost 5 years. Today, competitive suppliers serve 14% of California's customer load - about 5000 MW - but choice for other customers has been suspended.

Californians Call For Reopening Electric Choice

Business, government, labor and community leaders in the San Francisco Bay Area work together as the Bay Area Economic Forum. They recently released the third in a series of reports concluding: "Retail choice should be re-introduced for all customers."

"Customer choice and a rich array of service options can be achieved by allowing/ encouraging retail competition. Retail competition promotes innovation, efficiency, choice, and higher satisfaction, all while reducing costs. The power crisis has caused many to reject the idea of 'deregulation' altogether. However, as demonstrated in our prior reports, the crisis resulted from a flawed market design, not competition per se."