As for the Public Utility Commission's Cadden, he insists that Pennsylvania's market opening was always about more than mere money. In 1990, Britain, under former Conservative prime minister Margaret Thatcher, was one of the first countries to privatize its state-owned electricity industry. The first years under privatization were difficult and marked by controversy. Not until 1998, under a Labour government, was the market finally opened to residential consumers. Now, the British system is considered a success.
Price are down and consumers are happy.
However, a closer look suggests that here too, all is not quite as it seems. First, the government had artificially boosted rates in the last year of the old regulatory regime. After market opening, rates fell back to their old levels and the government declared a political success. Late last week, it announced it was boosting the regulated wholesale price of electricity by 18 per cent, from 4 to 4.7 cents a kilowatt-hour. Second, Kwoka notes, the 1990s were a time of falling coal and gas prices across Europe.