Regulation rethink

Calls for more regulation of the US power markets have subsided recently as fuel prices drop, and experts predict that a hybrid system of lighter regulation coupled with market-based pricing will become the new model across the country. Pauline McCallion investigates

The deregulation of US power markets from the 1990s onwards has come under fire in recent years as electricity prices rose to record highs. The State of Maryland, for example, was so concerned that it considered a return to a regulated market.

Most recently though, the global economic downturn, the cost of returning to the former system, and the fall in prices of input fuels such as coal and natural gas, are tempering the calls for a return to full regulation. Instead, a move towards a hybrid