Deregulation of the Electric Utility Industry Customer choice-The opportunity for consumers to choose among electricity suppliers as a result of deregulation. See Deregulation, Retail competition. Deregulation - A process of reducing or removing regulations to increase competition among electric utilities and to give consumers choice among electricity suppliers. Direct Access - An arrangement in which customers can purchase electricity directly from any supplier in the competitive market, using the transmission and distribution lines of electric utilities to transport the electricity. FERC Orders 888 and 889 -- Hoping to drive the cost of electricity down, FERC issued orders 888 and 889 to expand competition in the wholesale electric industry. These rules require utilities under FERC jurisdiction to file their transmission price lists and offer comparable transmission services to eligible third parties. With the implementation of these rules, the investor owned transmission system was converted from a private carrier to a common carrier. Anyone with excess energy can place their surplus on the common carrier transmission system for delivery to their customers in exchange for payment of the published fee. These FERC orders have been responsible for generation and transmission deregulation and for power marketers joining the electric energy business. They have also created new problems for integrated electric utilities to face, such as stranded costs and system reliability issues. Retail access - A market in which electricity and other energy services are sold directly to the end-use customer. Retail competition - A market structure in which customers have the opportunity to purchase electricity from a number of different providers.

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