Utility Dive ran two pieces on the same day that are, I think, arguing with each other without knowing it. Guy Caruso, a former head of the Energy Information Administration, says policymakers should “rely on data, not slogans,” and then offers the data: deregulated states have done worse on affordability than vertically integrated ones. He’s replying to Jigar Shah, who blamed utility greed. Further down the page, two Atlantic Council writers say PJM’s capacity price spikes show a market that drifted too far toward spot-price dependence, which is a design flaw and not a verdict on competition.

Put them side by side and “deregulated” starts to look like a word doing too much work. PJM’s capacity market isn’t a bazaar. Someone sets the demand curve, someone sets the rules for who qualifies, and FERC rewrites pieces of it every few months. When bills go up there, is that competition failing or planning failing? The Atlantic Council piece says design, Caruso says structure, and Shah says character. Each has a different villain, and each villain is hard to cross-examine.

The part that interests me is that a state-level average is a blunt thing to hold up as “the data.” Deregulated states and regulated ones differ in weather, fuel mix, and how much load arrived in the last three years, and the data centers are not evenly distributed. I don’t know which author is closer to right. I do know the argument is easier to have when the word “market” means one thing, and in PJM it currently means about four.

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