Update of an earlier post on the TR article Managing Energy

There is a need to open the demand side of the power industry to enable the development of the resourses of the demand side. The smart grid should remain a closed market that guarantees a responsibility to transport instead of a responsibility to serve. To open the demand side means obliterating the obsolete business model of winning rate cases to the regulator and enabling business model innovations under competition in the retail market.

Aug 29, 2008. A comment to update this post was deleted today. The key insight is in the link to the EWPC article Let’s Avoid Many Expensive Fiascos which shows the power utilities price control business models are in a dead end and that regulators are making excessive risks that will go into customers' pockets as soon as the new investments go into infant mortality or premature obsolescence. The articles’ summary reads:

There is no need to cite any [analytical] evidence “to enable a highly competitive, pro-consumer, complete and fully functional market architecture and design paradigm shift.” What is needed is to have “the global power industry … get out of the wrong jungle to produce a EWPC based EPAct as soon as possible.”

Three key references are Warren Causey’s article Utilities Full Speed Ahead on IUE/SG: The Question is What to do First, the EWPC article Utilities and Regulators’ Value Destruction, and the EWPC article Leadership Answers What to do First.

Why does the post seem like an advertisement for Gridpoint.
And using the current financial crisis as an eye-catcher.
Perhaps they should purchase advertising space elsewhere.

I think Rich Chetwynd has the right idea about how monetizing user generated content is the future of the web in his recent post here: http://blog.litmos.com/2008/10/how-to-succeed-in-web30-era.html

Higher income people are not just using quick payday loans, they are turning to rent-to-own stores for furniture. Places like Aaron's and Rent-a-Center have been seeing more people get their furniture over high end stores. Those places even offer quick payday loans, if you can believe it. The consensus is that more people are going to rent-to-own furniture outlets so they can get on a more reasonable payment plan than VISA or MasterCard will offer. Those places will let you get your pad spiffy faster than the quickest of quick payday loans will.