Ah, the glorious change of seasons in the deregulated electricity business.
Supplies are tight, the lights flicker, and electricity costs go through the roof.
Well, power experts say, this is what the coming summer holds in store as well. Whether demand is high or low, the deregulated electricity market seems unable to deliver sufficient power. The level was remarkable, even to an industry veteran. This in an industry that nationwide averages just 10 percent in capacity outages. McIntosh said yesterday that the state was prepared to deal with losing 7,000 megawatts of capacity because of scheduled maintenance and upgrades.