Are power markets fit for purpose? The debate over reliability, affordability and who pays for the grid

Electricity markets are under renewed pressure. Surging demand forecasts from data centres and other large loads are colliding with anxiety over reliability, rising consumer bills, and the pace of new investment. In markets such as PJM and ERCOT, those tensions are turning an arcane debate about market design into a live political question: can competitive power markets still deliver affordable, reliable electricity in a period of rapid growth?

Host Ed Crooks and regular contributor Amy Myers Jaffe are joined by Stacey Doré, Chief Strategy and Sustainability Officer and Executive Vice President for Public Affairs at Vistra, one of the largest competitive power producers and retailers in the US. Drawing on Vistra’s growth from Texas utility successor to multi-state owner of gas, nuclear, coal, solar and battery assets, Stacey makes the case for competitive markets as the best way to drive efficient investment, innovation and customer value.

The discussion starts with a challenge to the dominant narrative around load growth. Stacey argues that some of the most eye-catching forecasts for new demand are overstated by speculative projects and duplicative queue requests, and that the grid already has enough existing generation to serve most near-term growth for the vast majority of hours in the year. In her view, the real bottleneck is not an absolute lack of power, but the failure to connect new load to the grid quickly enough, alongside delays in transmission, distribution and interconnection processes.

Are competitive markets sending the right signals to build what is needed next? Stacey says yes, pointing to rising capacity and energy prices in PJM, bilateral contracts with large customers, and a wave of announced investment in new and upgraded generation. She argues that the better near-term solution is not to force every new large load to wait for one-for-one new generation, but to connect customers faster, use co-location where possible, and rely on demand flexibility, backup generation and storage to manage the system’s few true peak-stress hours.

Amy pushes on the consumer side of the equation. Even if competition can work, who pays when prices rise, and are current cost-allocation rules fair to households? The conversation digs into the distinction between wholesale generation costs and the rapidly rising transmission and distribution portion of electricity bills, with Stacey arguing that getting more large loads onto the grid would help spread fixed system costs more broadly. Amy counters that cost allocation may be the first reform policymakers need to tackle if they want to protect residential customers while accommodating a new wave of industrial and data-centre demand.

What emerges is less a simple argument for or against deregulation than a sharper question about what the grid actually needs now: faster interconnection, better load forecasting, clearer price signals, and a more honest debate about who should bear system costs. Whether policymakers double down on competition, let regulated utilities build more rate-based generation, or rethink cost allocation altogether, the stakes are clear: keeping the grid reliable while bringing on new demand without pushing affordability further out of reach.

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