I live in CT where most of the power is supplied by Eversource. Whenever there is a big storm that knocks out power (happens every few years) to most of the state they are never prepared even though they are mandated every time to prepare more than the last time. And after they restore the power the delivery charge goes up. At this point the delivery charge is more than half the cost and our electricity is north of $0.30 per kWh and keeps going up. Even if you switch generation companies your cost doesn’t actually go down significantly overall due to the delivery charges.

Moreover, Eversource has their hands in any solar projects. They drag out the process to approve any installations and fight you tooth and nail to make sure you can’t install a big enough system because they are mandated to buy electricity at the same rate as they sell it. They fully captured the market and are essential to the state’s functioning so whenever there is an issue the government backs them. When there isn’t, they post billions in profits.

What part of that sounds correct to you?

> When implemented well

Here's the important part. Regulatory capture and monopolies don't want or need things to be implemented well, because that leads to alternative options.

That is true of any complex endeavor. People have to do their jobs properly, and the system should be set up with consideration. There are no shortcuts to success. Policy needs to be bulwarked against the problems you mentioned.

There are partial markets at best. There is generally a single owner of the physical infrastructure for transmission and distribution. Also, don’t forget that the FCC forced utilities into in the 70s to allow telecoms to hang cable off of their poles; the utilities certainly had no incentive to do so at a fair rate.

> there are markets for generation, transmission, distribution, and retail, implying alternatives and resiliency.

No, there are not. You can't have 15 different companies running 15 different cables over 15 different sets of electric poles into a house, each competing on delivery of electricity (or water, or sewage, or...).

Well, you can, but there's nothing good or efficient about it.

Did you not read the first sentence of the post you're replying to?

> The last mile might be monopolized, but you are oversimplifying it. When implemented well, there are markets for generation, transmission, distribution, and retail, implying alternatives and resiliency.

First you claim oversimplification and then you write a sentence that feels like a "but when implemented well".

Tell me how this is a market in a reasonably sized city, and how many parallel electric lines, water and sewer pipes you can run for the market to be well implemented?

Bonus question: how many competing power lines can be run from a single power plant? 1? 2? 10?