From an arti­cle in today’s NYT by David Cay Johnston:

Retail elec­tric­ity prices have risen much more in states that adopted com­pet­i­tive pric­ing than in those that have retained tra­di­tional rates set by the gov­ern­ment, new stud­ies based on years of price reports show…. The dif­fer­ence in prices charged to indus­trial com­pa­nies in market states com­pared with those in reg­u­lated ones nearly tripled from 1999 to last July, accord­ing to the analy­sis of Energy Depart­ment data by Mar­i­lyn Showal­ter, who runs Power in the Public Inter­est, a group that favors tra­di­tional rate reg­u­la­tion. The price spread grew from 1.09 cents per kilowatt-​hour to 3.09 cents, her analy­sis showed. It also showed that in 2006 alone indus­trial cus­tomers paid $7.2 bil­lion more for elec­tric­ity in market states than if they had paid the aver­age prices in reg­u­lated states.

Another reminder that market com­pe­ti­tion is not about lower prices for cus­tomers; it’s about profit max­i­miza­tion for firms. Some­thing to keep in mind the next time energy com­pa­nies come pitch­ing dereg­u­la­tion in your neighborhood.