David Roberts | Vox Media Inc. / Vox.com Link to article
The US electricity sector is a bit of a mess.
The deregulation that swept through it in the 1990s and early 2000s was brought to a screeching halt by the Enron debacle. That left about half of US states and three-quarters of US ratepayers operating under deregulated systems, participating in regional energy markets overseen by independent system operators (ISOs).
These ISOs (sometimes called regional transmission organizations, or RTOs) do lots of things: oversee wholesale power markets, ensure that supply and demand are reliably balanced, plan for regional energy needs.
Thanks to their coordinated planning and large geographic footprint, markets administered by ISOs have also proven better able to integrate renewable energy. (Link to article)
