'Power Loss' addresses deregulation of the power industry

Virginia Tech professor's book traces the origins of the deregulated electric utility system

Electricity deregulation is back in the news, as Californians face blackouts and the prospects of higher electricity rates. How did California get into such a mess, and why is the electric system everywhere else being deregulated in the first place? Richard F. Hirsh, professor of history and science and technology studies at Virginia Tech, addresses these questions in Power Loss: The Origins of Deregulation and Restructuring in the American Electric Utility System.

In the late 1990s, the formerly staid and monopolistic electric utility industry entered an era of freewheeling competition and deregulation, allowing American consumers to buy electricity from any company offering it. In this book, Hirsh explains how and why this radical restructuring has occurred. Though the new electric utility system is still in its infancy, this account of its birth will help readers think more rationally about its future.

In recent years, the electric utility industry has begun to be restructured, with the hope that consumers could choose suppliers that provided innovative services at lower costs. Hirsh, whose background includes an undergraduate degree in American history, a master's degree in physics, and a Ph.D. in the history of science, became interested in the industry in 1980. At the time, he had been appointed chairman of a citizens' committee that was responsible for creating a new rate structure for the Gainesville (Fla.) Regional Utilities System. The utility had just completed a new plant and was looking for a way to pass the costs onto consumers. Hirsh worked with environmentalists, community representatives and others to develop rate structures that encouraged energy efficiency and discouraged the need to build more plants. He has since worked as a consultant for Pacific Gas and Electric company and other utility companies as well as nonprofit organizations.

In 1989, Hirsh published Technology and Transformation in the American Electric Utility Industry, which describes the technological, managerial and cultural reasons for the industry's problems in the 1970s. His latest book, Power Loss (1999, MIT Press), revisits these issues and looks at the causes and consequences of utility industry restructuring in the 1990s. In particular, he explains how utility managers, formerly protected by regulation, lost political and economic power while academics, environmentalists, and politicians gained power to deregulate the industry.

He follows the transformation of the utility industry and examines how new power generation technology has contributed to deregulation efforts. Hirsh also shows how the encouragement of competition as well as environmental concerns have led to the newly restructured system. And while that system is still taking shape, Hirsh's account provides perspective on recent events in the deregulation saga.

The book, Power Loss, is available on Amazon.com, MIT Press, and other booksellers.

Professor Richard F. Hirsh can be reached at 540-231-5601 or [email protected]. Information is also available at: www.majbill.vt.edu/history/hirsh/homepg.html

The MIT Press site for POWER LOSS: The Origins of Deregulation and Restructuring in the American Electric Utility System is http://mitpress.mit.edu/book-home.tcl?isbn=026208273X.

PR CONTACT: Heather McElrath
540-231-8508
[email protected]