Comentário do ILUMINA: Vale a pena ler o trecho do artigo disponível no link abaixo. Os engenheiros estão perdendo para o grupo das finanças nos Estados Unidos também. Pelo jeito, estamos copiando outra vez…
Electric Power Deregulation — A Bad Idea?
http://www.todaysengineer.org/2005/May/deregulation.asp
by Jack Casazza
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Engineering Competence Versus Economic Theory
Since deregulation, a major shift has occurred in the qualifications of those controlling electric power policy and managing electric power activities. For most of the 20th century, the majority of those directing such activities were engineers. With deregulation and restructuring, however, the emphasis shifted from technical knowledge and competence to marketing and financial knowledge. The driving force behind public policy decisions became economic theory rather than engineering facts. This shift at the top lead to a de-emphasis of technical knowledge at all levels. While some engineering salaries were increased significantly for those willing to support the new culture, the role of engineers was, in large part, supplanted by what some call “bean counters.”
The system planning departments that existed in most companies were dissolved. The transfer of past experience and judgment to new engineers and managers ceased. Support for power system education in our universities decreased. Key management positions engineers held declined.
Many new managers were driven by the desire to make profits “now.” They sometimes had huge bonus arrangements tied to these profits. To cut costs, they reduced power system facilities maintenance (and tree trimming) and made sharp reductions in personnel. In the ten-year period from 1990 to 1999, labor employed by investor-owned utilities decreased from 480,000 to 350,000 . Department of Labor data shows national utility employment in power generation dropped from 350,000 to 280,000 between 1990 and 2000, and from 196,000 to 156,000 in transmission and distribution, while electric consumption continued to increase.
Training reductions were one consequence, since sufficient personnel were often not available to free up others for training programs, as in the past. At a FERC technical conference in Philadelphia, one system operator said, “We have downsized quite a bit of our operating staff … There is not a whole lot of time left for training.” An independent European analysis has concluded that personnel reductions also played an important role in the recent blackouts there.
Some among the new regime “cooked the books” to show false profits and earn bonuses. They replaced generation schedules, formerly based on producing power so as to minimize total production costs, with generation dispatch based on quoted prices. During shortages, this approach has resulted in skyrocketing prices — sometimes as high as one hundred times the normal rate. Common new procedures called for payments in any period to be based on the highest accepted bid, not the bid a supplier had made, often resulting in payments considerably higher than bid price. “Game playing,” in which generating capacity was withheld from service to drive prices up for their other generating units, became routine, further increasing the total cost of electricity and exacerbating reliability problems.
Over the past 15 years, the federal government’s focus has been on facilitating markets for electric power. It still is. Policies have been dictated by economists and supported by those in industry and the various professions who expected to gain financially. Reliability became secondary to profits in some companies. In government, some believed that top appointments required political skills and economic knowledge, and that engineers were lacking such skills. Both FERC and the Department of Energy have struggled to fill key positions requiring the technical background necessary to ask crucial technical questions about proposed policies and activities. Too often, the powers that be established new rules and procedures that encouraged bad behavior with no analysis of their potential effect on reliability.
And lastly, the belief that market forces can be used to design an efficient and reliable power system has permeated both the government and some power industry executives, ignoring that markets are driven by immediate profits, not long-term optimization. The change in leadership has harmed our nation, our industries, our consumers and our engineering profession.
