Non-private Power Aggregation: New Markets for Public-private Partnerships

Abstract

The emergence of privately sponsored customer aggregation
firms aimed principally at the private market in response to electric
power deregulation was an obvious development, following the pat-
tern set first in natural gas. Aggregators-whether independent, or
associated with power marketers or ESCOs-bring with them not
only the capability to enhance composite purchase power muscle, but
to provide to aggregation customers valuable system planning inter-
mediary services to structure lower overall costs, by, for example,
better matching usage requirements .
The emergence of "non-private" aggregators in the public and
the not-for-profit sector has not received as much attention, because
those fields generally have been viewed as additional markets for the
private sector rather than themselves entrepreneurial initiators of
change. That viewpoint overlooks a salient fact : deregulation threat-
ens these sectors themselves with privatization unless they respond
proactively themselves.