{"id":188487,"date":"2026-02-18T08:48:00","date_gmt":"2026-02-18T13:48:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/02\/18\/how-deregulation-made-electricity-more-expensive-not-cheaper\/"},"modified":"2026-02-18T09:00:11","modified_gmt":"2026-02-18T14:00:11","slug":"how-deregulation-made-electricity-more-expensive-not-cheaper","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/02\/18\/how-deregulation-made-electricity-more-expensive-not-cheaper\/","title":{"rendered":"How deregulation made electricity more expensive, not cheaper"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/theconversation.com\/how-deregulation-made-electricity-more-expensive-not-cheaper-272780\">How deregulation made electricity more expensive, not cheaper<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/theconversation.com\/how-deregulation-made-electricity-more-expensive-not-cheaper-272780\">https:\/\/theconversation.com\/how-deregulation-made-electricity-more-expensive-not-cheaper-272780<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Publish Date: <a href=\"publish_date]\">2026-02-18 08:48:00<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Source Domain: <a href=\"theconversation.com\">theconversation.com<\/a><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>\n<p><strong>Rising Electricity Prices<\/strong>: Over the last five years, the generation portion of residential electric bills in Columbus, Ohio, has increased by 110%, reflecting a national trend in energy affordability issues.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<p><strong>Political Implications<\/strong>: Energy affordability is becoming a significant election issue in American politics, with over half of U.S. adults expressing concern about electricity prices.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<p><strong>Deregulation Fallout<\/strong>: The initial promise of electricity deregulation, designed to reduce prices through competition, has instead led to the rise of middlemen marketers, complicating rather than simplifying the retail electricity market.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<p><strong>Middlemen and Deregulation<\/strong>: Deregulation has not delivered the expected competition but has instead created a complex system where middlemen marketers influence electricity rates, often in ways not aligned with market fundamentals.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<p><strong>Two Pricing Options<\/strong>: Consumers have two options: participating in an open market with retail suppliers or remaining on a default service selected by the utility company. The former often yields less favorable rates than the latter due to lack of true competition.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<p><strong>Inefficient Default Rates<\/strong>: Default supply rates determined through auctions are significantly influenced by the number of competing bidders, with fewer bidders leading to higher prices for consumers.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<p><strong>Fraud and Misleading Practices<\/strong>: Deregulated markets have faced problems such as deceptive marketing, slamming, and fraud, further complicating the already complex pricing landscape.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<p><strong>Uncompetitive Markets<\/strong>: Research indicates that neither the open market nor the default service processes deliver the competitive benefits promised by deregulation, resulting in higher electricity prices for consumers.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>How deregulation made electricity more expensive, not cheaper https:\/\/theconversation.com\/how-deregulation-made-electricity-more-expensive-not-cheaper-272780 Publish Date: 2026-02-18 08:48:00 Source Domain:&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":188488,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/images.theconversation.com\/files\/718276\/original\/file-20260213-56-8b3mkc.jpg?ixlib=rb-4.1.0&rect=0%2C288%2C3456%2C1728&q=45&auto=format&w=1356&h=668&fit=crop","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-188487","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-artificial-intelligence"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/188487"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=188487"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/188487\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":188489,"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/188487\/revisions\/188489"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/188488"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=188487"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=188487"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=188487"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}