RTGs: A new model for economic regualtion— Or old wine in a new bottle?

Will the electric power industry be able to develop a sound structure of self-regulating regional groups to address transmission access and planning issues before it is told how to do so The path to a successful outcome is littered with the conflicting perspectives of other interests. Over little more than the last year, a new concept has entered the debate over national transmission policy - one having the potential to transform dramatically the way business is conducted in the bulk power sector. It is the voluntary regional transmission group (or RTG). Despite the infancy of the concept, a detailed consensus version of an RTG proposal came very close to being considered in the House-Senate Conference on the Energy Policy Act of 1992 as a major component of the new transmission access/pricing regime established in the Act's Title VII. The concept has already undergone significant evolution since it was first articulated in the early stages of that legislative debate and is emerging in different forms in different regions of the country.