[ianch99]

Originally Posted by Paul

If you have a serious practical solution rather than the usual "lets attack the government" we'd all like to hear it.

Here's one: we follow a more balanced model where the state and private sector work together like a number of countries in Europe:

https://www.theguardian.com/commenti...y-owned-crisis

In other major western countries, most households do not have to play the market as in the UK. In Germany, public sector suppliers of energy are more trusted, and two-thirds of all electricity is bought from municipally owned energy companies (“Stadtwerke”). They avoid other problems of the UK system, too. Stadtwerke own and run the great majority of the distribution companies and have also played a leading role in developing renewable electricity generation. The Stadtwerke of Munich city council has been supplying enough renewable energy for the needs of every household in the city since 2016, and by 2025 will supply enough for all the local industries, too – your BMW will be made using public renewable energy. In France, too, two-thirds buy their electricity from EdF, majority-owned by the French state, which also runs the grids and generates most of the electricity. In Italy, a similar proportion buy from AU, a public company owned by the regulator.

https://blogs.worldbank.org/developm...rent-end-users

Going beyond the “public” vs “private” debate

Overall, we find no major differences between the efficiency and quality of services which commercial end-users receive from private or public utility companies. This is also reflected by the fact that the top 10 economies in the Getting Electricity indicator of Doing Business have both majority public (e.g. Korea Electric Power Corp and Dubai Electricity and Water Authority) and majority private distribution companies (e.g. CLP Power Hong Kong Ltd and UK Power Networks) represented.

Looking ahead, more nuance is needed when examining outcomes across utility ownership types. After all, many utilities have a mixed ownership structure between the public and the private sector. Studies have also found that public-private partnerships – as opposed to entirely private (or public) ownership – may be more conducive to utility performance, an area that deserves further research.