State-By-State Scorecard on Electricity Competition
Authors
Table of Contents
- Executive Summary
- Introduction
- Methodology and Assessed Factors
- Customer Choice and Competitive Foundations
- The Role of Rate-Regulated Monopolies
- Alternatives Within a Traditionally Regulated Utility System
- Wholesale Competition
- Price Caps and Limits on Production Differentiation
- Smart Meters and Metering Data
- Customer Education and Access
- Regulatory Staff Dedicated to Retail Market Oversight
- State Utility Consumer Advocates
- Complaints and Complaint Resolution
- Retail Electric Competition Grades, by State
- Conclusion
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Executive Summary
Electricity competition involves more than just allowing customers to choose their retail supplier.
It also requires making sure customers are aware of their ability to choose, encouraging them to choose their supplier, and keeping that choice visible to reinforce their decision. Currently, just over a dozen states give all of their customers the ability to choose their electricity provider. Other states have created hybrid models that offer some degree of choice. Each state has adopted its own set of rules to facilitate this process.
Although the ability to choose a supplier remains the primary benchmark for assessing electricity competition across the United States, additional strategies that support competition and choice can also factor into the overall picture of a state’s retail market, regardless of whether or not it offers full retail open access. These include:
- Allowing municipalities to aggregate residential customer demand
- Allowing smart-device companies to aggregate demand-side flexibility and production into wholesale markets or utility procurements
- Enabling the access and sharing of customers’ energy-usage data to optimize purchasing decisions around use patterns and available offerings
- Implementing utility procurement practices that enhance competitive selection, even if the costs are incorporated into the rates of the captive customer base
- Participating in an RTO
- Accessing a more liquid, competitive market upstream, constituted as an RTO
This scorecard describes the ways states can facilitate and enhance retail choice in electricity, assesses the degree to which each state is currently fostering competition and optionality, and suggests specific strategies each state can implement to further improve its retail electricity competition.
To assess each state’s level of retail choice, we first identified factors known to benefit consumer choice and then researched and verified which strategies each jurisdiction had implemented. States with existing retail choice programs were assigned a higher baseline grade; those without retail choice programs were assigned a lower baseline grade. We then applied our state-based research results and adjusted states’ scores to ensure that they reflected both the quality of any retail competition program as well as additional efforts and strategies known to be helpful in promoting retail electric choice.
Assessing states’ effectiveness in fostering electric competition in this way is important because competition exerts pressure on prices, promotes new markets, and creates savings for customers. Although full retail choice remains the ultimate goal, this scorecard illustrates that state regulators have additional tools they can deploy to bring competition to different parts of the utility business and enhance customer benefits.
Introduction
Active competition promotes efficiency and innovation, and this is as true in the electric power industry as it is elsewhere in society.
Retail choice of electricity suppliers fosters competition and maximizes benefits for consumers. Yet even in states that have not fully reformed their electricity regulations to allow for consumer choice, competition can still be nurtured and developed in different ways. In many states, for example, electricity customers can secure alternative generation sources or directly procure electricity from large power plants. In addition, some states that have traditionally regulated monopolies have mandated competitive procurement processes for electricity, adding a degree of competition to the system. Moreover, states that do not give customers a genuine choice in supplier can participate in regional transmission organizations (RTOs) to provide utilities and customers with more opportunities to identify and access low-cost resources.
The purpose of this report is to assess and compare the competitiveness of each state’s retail electricity offerings and highlight policy solutions that states have implemented to enhance competition. Because this report primarily focuses on the state regulation of investor-owned utilities (IOUs), rural cooperative and municipal utilities are largely beyond its scope. For this reason, we have omitted Nebraska—which is served entirely by public power utilities—from this scorecard. We have, however, included the District of Columbia, which is served by an IOU. Additionally, although solar power can be a version of electricity competition, this report does not evaluate the effectiveness of state solar policies.
Methodology and Assessed Factors
To develop this scorecard, we identified a set of factors to guide our research. These included states’ approaches to customer choice and competitive foundations; treatment of rate-regulated monopolies; alternatives within a traditionally regulated utility system; wholesale competition; price caps and limits on product differentiation; smart meters and metering data; customer education and access; regulatory staffing; consumer advocacy; and complaint filing and resolution.
To gather information on these factors for each state, we consulted public utility commission websites, consumer advocacy pages, and energy office websites. We reviewed utility tariffs; state regulatory commission reports and orders; consumer advocate reports and materials; research from trade organizations; and relevant reports and materials from other groups. We then assigned a grade to each state based on the information available (or lacking). Below, we summarize the important aspects of each assessed factor that informed the final scores, as well as how those practices influenced each state’s grade.
Customer Choice and Competitive Foundations
The traditional regulation of monopoly utilities operating in the supply, transmission, and distribution of electricity leaves customers with only the putative choices dictated by the utility’s regulator.
In this structure, customers have no direct input or decision on the cost, term, composition, or generation source of the electricity they receive.
Although distribution is considered a “natural monopoly,” supply can be more easily separated. Some states have leveraged this circumstance to provide customers with more choice in how they meet their electricity needs. Specifically, they have required the divestiture of utilities’ generation assets to allow consumers to shop for their electric supply. With this approach, transmission and distribution are unbundled from supply and remain rate regulated. The clean divestiture of generation ensures that captive retail customers are not left covering shortfalls in generators’ market revenues, and, instead, are provided the benefit of reduced wholesale prices that result from active competition. It also enables the retail utility to focus their attention and capital on infrastructure and retail service. All customers then pay the same distribution and transmission rates, as well as the same non-bypassable charges (like programs to support low-income customers or energy-efficiency programs), but suppliers can compete to attract customers by offering a variety of supply contracts with different term lengths, pricing structures (i.e., fixed versus variable), and bundling options (i.e., with other products).
In the United States, the metering required to bill these retail choice customers is still conducted by the rate-regulated utility. Most states that allow customers to shop electricity supply rates require or permit the rate-regulated utility to bill customers and socialize the cost of uncollected retail bills across energy suppliers or customers. Texas handles this differently, however. In that state, competitive suppliers bill customers and own the risk of bad debt. The latter is preferable, as suppliers then have an incentive to work with customers to reduce the risk of uncollectibles.
Grade Factors
All customers benefit from well-implemented retail choice that meaningfully empowers them to make their own energy decisions. This report assigns A through F grades (with plus/minus distinctions) based on a state’s competitiveness and customer empowerment in the supply of electricity. In assigning grades, we determined that states that have taken the important competition-driving step of fully implementing retail electric shopping for all types of customers would start with a letter grade of B, which would then be raised or lowered based on other competitive factors discussed below. States that have not implemented retail electric choice could receive credit for other competition-supporting or meaningful-choice initiatives, but were never assigned a grade higher than a C+. Additionally, states with competition requirements for utility procurements received credit for implementing competitive opportunities for non-utility providers.
The Role of Rate-Regulated Monopolies
States should work to separate the supply function from the utilities’ business function entirely.
As such, the remaining rate-regulated utility should be involved only in the delivery of energy, and, as discussed earlier, neither it nor its affiliates should own supply or operate as suppliers—or offer energy-related products or services within their regulated footprint. As a monopoly, utilities are in a unique position to upend supply provisions, either through anticompetitive actions or investments. For example, not only is transmission necessary for the operation of generation, but the two can also be economic substitutes, where the utility is also the owner of transmission. Thus, a utility can leverage its transmission and distribution assets to meaningfully impact the economic consequence of another entity’s generation investment and would have a financial incentive to do so if it benefited an affiliate involved in the supply business.
Additionally, allowing monopoly utilities to use their rate-regulated nature and their incumbent status to participate in otherwise competitive ventures negatively impacts competitive markets and places unnecessary costs and risk on captive utility customers. As such, utilities should be fully removed from competitive endeavors. They should not have affiliates engaged in competitive markets, nor should they be permitted to participate themselves. Instead, regulators should seek to “quarantine the monopoly” to ensure that the monopoly stays within its lane.
If a state should fail to block the regulated utility from engaging in other competitive parts of the industry, regulators should ensure that firewalls and ring-fencing are established to protect captive customers from subsidizing business activities unrelated to the provision of retail electric service in that jurisdiction. This would include ensuring that strict affiliate rules are in place to limit the co-mingling of costs, risks, and information between the regulated utility and the competitive affiliates; that services provided by the regulated or holding-company firm are charged to the competitive affiliate at market value or cost (whichever is higher); and that shareholders stand to lose as much as they stand to gain from competitive ventures. In the context of restructuring and competitive supply, regulators should ensure that incumbent utilities are not default supply providers. Under their existing business model, monopolies play no long-term beneficial role in competitive markets, and default supply should instead be provided competitively and independently of the monopoly utility.
Grade Factors
If a state permits its incumbent electric utility to participate in otherwise competitive ventures, like owning electric vehicle (EV) charging stations, or if it allows affiliates that benefit from the utility’s incumbent status to participate in competitive ventures, this typically lowered the state’s assigned grade. However, if a state has taken material action to quarantine the monopoly in ways that do not degrade other competition, this typically raised its grade.
Alternatives Within a Traditionally Regulated Utility System
States that are unwilling to fully restructure their retail supply markets still have a number of other ways to empower consumers.
When policymakers are concerned about residential impacts of retail choice or the effort and costs to market to small-volume customers, states can still provide direct market access to large, financially sophisticated commercial and industrial (C&I) customers. Short of direct market access, regulators could also provide these same C&I customers with an opportunity to buy generation through the utility, where the utility is an intermediary between the consumer and a merchant generator or competitive supplier. This type of “sleeve” purchased power agreement is most common with customers seeking cost-effective, renewable generation. Utilities have inherent financial interests in maximizing the size of their investments. As such, regulators have an opportunity to require utilities that remain vertically integrated to seek incremental or replacement generation through competitive processes. This best practice for vertically integrated utilities ensures that consumers are paying a fair market price for generation deemed necessary by regulators.
Another option to promote competition and customer empowerment is community choice aggregation (CCA), in which local governments provide electricity to residents of that area and competitively procure supply on their behalf. CCA is similar to retail competition, except that the government procurer acts as an intermediary for consumers, seeking out competitive rates and preferred sources of generation. In some jurisdictions, customers take part in CCA on an opt-out basis. With the exception of Texas, the states that have the largest proportion of residential customers being serviced by third-party suppliers have achieved that status because of CCA. However, states should be mindful of the risk that retail competition could devolve into a limited choice between a rate-regulated monopoly utility and an opportunistic government procurement entity. A broader range of competitive options are essential to keep both models accountable and responsive to customer needs.
Additionally, consumers in organized wholesale markets have an opportunity to participate in resource aggregation, where consumers sign up with third parties as demand-located supply resources. Examples of these resources include demand response, home-sited batteries, and solar generation. Aggregators then combine these resources to participate in wholesale markets. This provides consumers with a direct path to monetizing their actions and empowers them to make their own energy decisions. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) Order No. 2222 requires RTOs to permit third-party aggregation of customers of certain utilities, but its successful implementation depends on the pace of progress at RTOs. Meanwhile, FERC Order No. 719 permits states to opt out of allowing retail customers to participate in wholesale demand response programs through aggregations at RTOs. Importantly, these FERC orders apply only to utilities within RTOs; they do not apply to utilities that operate outside of an RTO.
Finally, regulated utilities sometimes offer rates that are alternatives to the typical, two-part rate in which residential customers are billed a monthly flat fee and then a fixed per-kWh flat rate that does not change, regardless of the time of day, season, or upstream costs. For example, time-of-use (TOU) rates are typically an alternative to this flat per-kWh rate. Enrollment in TOU rates, however, has remained low. Moreover, a handful of states have realized that costs should better align with regulated prices and have created the TOU rate as an opt-out rate.
Of note, some traditionally regulated states have established various programs or rates for certain end-use devices. Colorado enacted a law requiring a retail virtual power plant (VPP) tariff that establishes payments for performance of distributed energy resources (DERs), stacking the value of the various avoided costs. In other words, there is a growing landscape of rates and programs that charge for or make payments to customers with demand or device flexibility based on the timing of their consumption and performance. While the economic rationale for these rates and programs is not a focus of this paper, they do create a marketplace where third-party businesses selling retail-like subscriptions and products to utility customers act similarly to suppliers in a genuine retail-choice environment.
Grade Factors
For non-restructured states, the successful implementation of these competition-light options raised a state’s grade. States in RTOs that allow demand response aggregation garnered increases in their scores, whereas states that have either adopted an opt-out or otherwise prohibited aggregators received reflected decreases in their scores.
Wholesale Competition
Regardless of efforts taken at the retail level, one way to increase competition and provide regulators with actionable market information on otherwise monopoly utilities is to require those utilities to join RTOs or independent system operators (ISOs).
These organized wholesale markets include willing buyers and sellers beyond incumbent utilities. Moreover, although competition is optimized when states restructure and require that utilities join RTOs/ISOs, a hybrid model with vertically integrated utilities in organized markets is more beneficial to consumers than a standalone monopoly. RTO membership itself drives reliability and economic benefits to its members, but regulators have to be diligent in ensuring that utility savings are passed along to consumers. RTO membership and the resulting market signals from competitive generation also provide regulators with a rubric by which to gauge the reasonableness of utility actions. For instance, vertically integrated utilities should not be proposing to build or procure generation at twice the price of similar resources in the same RTO. Without the market insight or experience needed to compare utility actions, regulators are at a disadvantage in ensuring least-cost planning.
Grade Factors
To incorporate this factor into our scoring rubric, we determined that if states have utilities that have joined RTOs, their scores would increase. States with some, but not all, of their utilities in RTOs received incremental improvements in their scores. These increases are in addition to the previous factor regarding the degree to which states in RTOs permit retail customers to participate in wholesale markets via entities other than their utility.
Price Caps and Limits on Production Differentiation
While competition can drive innovation and efficiency, regulatory restrictions on product offerings and pricing diminish these benefits.
Price caps, such as Maryland’s recent restrictions on competitive supplier rates, may protect consumers from short-term price spikes but risk driving innovative suppliers from the market. Similarly, regulations that limit product differentiation, including restrictions on multiyear contracts or time-varying rate structures, can prevent suppliers from developing offerings that would better serve diverse customer needs and preferences. These constraints often stem from well-intentioned consumer protection efforts but can deprive customers of valuable options that could help them manage their electricity costs more effectively. The challenge for policymakers lies in striking a balance between protecting consumers from potential market abuses and preserving the flexibility needed for meaningful competition to flourish.
Grade Factors
When states have implemented competition in a hands-off manner—with the exception of holding bad actors accountable—their grades increased. If, however, states limit offerings or inhibit product differentiation and additionality, their grades decreased, as these actions degrade the benefits of competition.
Smart Meters and Metering Data
Smart meters, or advanced metering infrastructure (AMI), can provide utilities, customers, suppliers, and authorized third parties with access to residential and other small-volume customer electricity usage data in ways that were previously unimaginable.
By providing interval data, which was formerly only available and cost-effective for large customers, and near-instantaneous usage feedback to customers, this metering infrastructure can provide small-volume customers with an opportunity to materially change the way they use electricity.
Unfortunately, although most of the country has smart meters, the use of those meters has been suboptimal. The failure is not on customers; utilities have done little to pursue programs that implement these investments to the maximum benefit of customers, nor have they proposed offerings that advance competition. Similarly, regulators seem to be reluctant to force utilities to use this infrastructure to its maximum benefit for end-use consumers. Best practices would provide customers with a helpful, informative, easy-to-access portal to view usage data in as close to real time as possible. This is important because failure to require utilities to maximize investments to consumers’ benefit runs afoul of least-cost regulatory principles and undermines consumers’ ability to dictate their own opportunities.
Even in states that have restructured, successful implementation is key to providing customers with competitive access to supply. To ensure that their offerings are accurate and meet customer preferences and demands, suppliers need information that was previously available only to the utility. Utilities should settle market transactions based on actual customer data, rather than representative data based on past demand from that and similar consumers. Moreover, data should be conveyed in a timely manner, meet minimum quality requirements, and be provided to competitive suppliers and third parties in a concise, easy-to-use format.
To use the information to their benefit, customers should be able to simply and easily share their data with third parties like demand response aggregators or technology companies. One best practice is to ensure that data access implementation leverages open standards, notably Electronic Data Interchange or Green Button Connect My Data. It is also important that the implementation be certified to ensure utility compliance with the standard. In states with retail supply competition, regulators should require that settlements of customers with smart meters be based on actual metering data, rather than on load profiling. Similarly, for states allowing DER aggregators, access to granular data (e.g., hourly or 15-minute usage information) is vital to supporting the development of those markets. Granting suppliers and aggregators access to such data in a timely manner expands the type of offerings competitive suppliers can propose. Even in the absence of any competition in retail markets, providing metering data to retail customers in a timely and meaningful way empowers them to take control of their electricity usage.
Grade Factors
In restructured states, well-implemented electronic data interchanges raised the state’s grade. Smart meter deployment; customer access to near-real-time, high-quality metering data; and portability to third parties all generally raised a state’s grade. We gave additional credit to states with utilities that implement Green Button Connect–certified programs.
Customer Education and Access
Even in states with retail access, electricity consumers are still customers of monopoly distributors.
Although these consumers know they are customers of the incumbent utility, the ability to shop for supply is not always obvious, especially given that most states are not restructured. As such, states with retail supply choice should provide a minimum level of public education regarding the opportunity to choose supply and maintain a common marketplace with the information customers need to make informed decisions.
Customer education should include recurring outreach through social media or press (including press releases) and information on the Public Utilities Commission (PUC) or government website. In addition, because nearly 1 in 5 Americans use a language other than English at home, education on commodity shopping should be available in alternative languages. Given that most customers receive a monthly bill from their incumbent utility and PUCs regulate the format of bills in nearly every state, bills should also be leveraged as a cost-effective educational opportunity. They should include standard language that informs customers of their opportunity to shop and shows whether they are currently receiving electricity from an alternative supplier and who that supplier is.
Regardless of whether these reminders are included on bills, PUCs should allow suppliers to have a direct relationship with their customers. As opposed to their incumbent utility, consumers choose to engage with their alternative supplier, and—differently than rate-regulated utilities—acceptance of supplier offerings is a bargained-for exchange. To facilitate this relationship, suppliers should be able to bill their customers directly. To reduce overhead and consumer confusion, this should be in the form of a single bill from the supplier that includes all utility and commodity charges, instead of separate supplier and utility bills. This approach, called supplier-consolidated billing (which differs from utility-consolidated billing in which the utility sends a bill for both its costs and the supplier’s costs), reinforces the consumer’s choice of supplier, as well as the term and price of the agreement. Consumers hardly need to be reminded about the charges of utilities, which are applied by law, not choice, and which are effectively perpetual. If utility-consolidated billing is used, however, the supplier’s name and charges should be prominently shown.
An important measure of a state’s success in implementing retail choice is the effectiveness of the marketplace they host, which takes the form of a government-run website. These websites should be optimized for mobile and desktop viewing and should provide information on each of the registered suppliers, including customer reviews. The website should also include a comprehensive list of all offerings, with the ability to sort and filter for contract terms and conditions as well as value-added attributes like renewable energy. In states with more than one retail electric utility, customers should ideally be able to enter their zip code so they only see supplier options available to them and to ensure they receive an accurate price to compare for the default offer they will take service under if they do not choose a supplier. An accurate, visible, and easy-to-understand “price to compare” is imperative for informed decision making. Each website should also have a utility-specific sample bill that informs customers of the different supplier and utility service charges. In addition, shopping customers should have an opportunity to either input a representative kWh amount or have their actual usage prepopulate based on past metering data to compare the total bill under default and competitive offerings. This best practice builds on an apples-to-apples review of rates because customers are often most aware of final bill amounts, not rates.
Finally, a successful program allows customers to enroll quickly and easily—within days, not weeks or months. It also ensures that moving within a utility’s territory, or even within the state, does not require cancelling a supplier agreement and re-enrolling at the new address; when moving, customers should be able to keep their supplier and contracts, just as utilities allow customers in many states to merely change the address on their account. Furthermore, allowing customers to shop or sign up with a supplier with their government-issued identification, as opposed to requiring a utility account number, reduces unnecessary barriers to choosing a supplier. States should also ensure that they impose only a light-touch over competitive offerings. “Consumer-oriented” limitations on offers, such as contract lengths and arbitrary price caps, undermine the competitive nature of the markets, often to the detriment of consumers. Placing such restrictions on offerings serves only to drive consumers to the default offering and push alternative suppliers out of the market. For example, default offers have little in the way of long-term price certainty, especially compared to the two- to five-year contracts that are often available in the market.
Grade Factors
If states have effectively implemented customer education programs; made it easy to shop and be informed about options; permit supplier-consolidated billing; and have a high-quality shopping experience, we raised their grade. Poor education and shopping experiences; utility-consolidated billing; and challenging or confusing shopping environments lowered a state’s grade.
Regulatory Staff Dedicated to Retail Market Oversight
Retail electric markets are complex and require specialized oversight. State regulators should have staff focused solely on retail market performance.
These staff members should have the expertise and resources to effectively monitor supplier behavior, utility–supplier interactions, consumer switching, consumer complaints, and other components of market performance. An important function of the regulator is to consider how the utility would act if it were subject to competition. For retail-choice states, that means ensuring that competitors have a fair-market opportunity without fearing unfair utility practices. In vertically integrated states, that means opening up utility practices to competition where feasible and reviewing utility rates and proposals with an eye toward whether these factors would hinder competition if there were a market.
Grade Factors
States with regulatory staff focused on retail market oversight scored higher in this factor than states without such staff. Because this is largely a function of states with competitive markets (traditional states do not have markets to oversee), this factored into the higher starting grade of states that have implemented retail competition.
State Utility Consumer Advocates
State utility consumer advocates have a role in giving residential consumers a voice in regulatory processes.
Utilities and large industrial customers generally have strong representation in these processes. The state utility consumer advocate should be actively engaged in utility rates, resource planning, and rulemaking processes, as well as in monitoring consumer complaints and complaint-resolution processes.
Non-governmental consumer advocates are also valuable and active in some states. Our report focuses on the state regulatory environment, so we did not consider these groups in our evaluation, but laws governing access to utility data and regulatory proceedings can aid non-governmental organizations and further protect diverse consumer interests.
Grade Factors
The presence of an active and well-resourced state utility consumer advocate raised a state’s grade. While state consumer advocates may not be supportive of retail choice in some jurisdictions, having an office ensures that an additional voice participates in commission proceedings. This can affect the implementation of policies to support customer choice—not just for supply, but also for other products and services.
Complaints and Complaint Resolution
State utility commissions and state utility consumer advocates should provide consumers with easy access to informal and formal complaint processes.
Information on consumer-complaint processes should be easily accessible from regulators’ websites, either directly from the homepage or on a consumer-information page. Instructions for informal complaint processes can speed the resolution of issues and reduce the use of public resources. Consumers should also be able to easily file complaints through the commission website.
Commissions can promote transparency and good supplier and utility behavior by publicly reporting complaints by company and resolution status. Public reports can also aid in identifying and addressing systemic issues in retail markets and with regulated utilities.
Grade Factors
States that publicly report the outcomes of complaints filed against suppliers and utilities had increases in their grades. Presenting this information in the aggregate, rather than identifying complaints, respondents, and the subject of complaints still resulted in a grade increase, but not as much as if the actual complaints or complaint details had been reported.
Table 1: Retail Electric Competition Grades, by State
Table 1 summarizes the score given to each state and the District of Columbia, and the pages that follow provide a state-by-state scorecard that expands on our findings for each state and outlines recommendations for how each state can improve their retail electric competition.
| State | Grade |
|---|---|
| Alabama | F |
| Alaska | D |
| Arizona | C- |
| Arkansas | D+ |
| California | C+ |
| Colorado | C |
| Connecticut | C+ |
| Delaware | B |
| District of Columbia | B+ |
| Florida | D |
| Georgia | D |
| Hawaii | C- |
| Idaho | D- |
| Illinois | B+ |
| Indiana | D |
| Iowa | D |
| Kansas | D+ |
| Kentucky | D+ |
| Louisiana | D+ |
| Maine | B |
| Maryland | C |
| Massachusetts | B- |
| Michigan | C |
| Minnesota | D- |
| Mississippi | D- |
| Missouri | D |
| Montana | C- |
| Nebraska | N/A |
| Nevada | D+ |
| New Hampshire | B- |
| New Jersey | B- |
| New Mexico | D |
| New York | C+ |
| North Carolina | C- |
| North Dakota | D |
| Ohio | B+ |
| Oklahoma | D |
| Oregon | C- |
| Pennsylvania | B+ |
| Rhode Island | B |
| South Carolina | D+ |
| South Dakota | D |
| Tennessee | D |
| Texas | A- |
| Utah | D- |
| Vermont | C- |
| Virginia | C+ |
| Washington | D |
| West Virginia | D |
| Wisconsin | D- |
| Wyoming | D- |
For the full details of each state’s grade, see the original report here.
Conclusion
Looking across our assessments, several key findings emerge.
Successful states have established retail customer choice, implemented robust data access policies that leverage standardized protocols like Green Button Connect, and developed effective consumer education and protection frameworks. However, many states continue to lag in critical areas by failing to provide meaningful choice in electricity supply, maintaining barriers to data access and sharing, and offering limited consumer information or weak complaint resolution processes. Even in states with some competitive elements, implementation challenges often diminish benefits to consumers.
In a scorecard assessing electricity competition, it is not surprising that the states that allow retail choice received the highest grades. Specifically, restructured states with retail choice and RTO participation consistently scored the highest, mostly in the B range. Texas achieved the scorecard’s highest grade: A-. States in the hybrid category, which maintain regulated monopolies while participating in RTOs, showed marginally better performance than traditional states, with a few achieving grades in the C range and most landing in the D range. States that maintain the traditional regulated monopoly model without RTO participation performed the poorest, with no grades above C- and several F grades. This pattern suggests that although RTO participation offers some benefits, the greatest gains in consumer choice and market efficiency come when full restructuring is combined with effective implementation.
Every state has opportunities to enhance competition and improve consumer benefits, regardless of their current market structure. States using traditional models can take meaningful steps toward competition by joining RTOs and enabling access to competitive procurement. Hybrid states can build on their RTO participation by expanding customer choice and implementing robust, competitive procurement processes. Even high-performing, restructured states have room for improvement in areas like supplier-consolidated billing and data access. However, the evidence is clear that meaningful reform cannot wait. Consumers in states that maintain traditional monopoly structures are missing out on significant benefits that competition can deliver. We encourage states to take concrete steps toward implementing competitive frameworks that can better serve their consumers.
For all citations, see the original report here.