Louisiana’s Grid Gambit: Is It Time to Let Private Power Play?
State and federal regulators face mounting pressure to deliver solutions: ways to provide speed-to-power for hyperscalers and industrial users without burdening taxpayers with subsidies or existing ratepayers with endless infrastructure upgrades. Enter consumer-regulated electricity, or CRE, a deceptively simple idea that is starting to look like common sense.
The concept is modest in scope yet bold in implication: let private companies build and operate private electricity systems not connected to the main grid for sophisticated, high-demand customers who sign up voluntarily. No interconnection, no public-utility oversight, no socializing of costs onto residential ratepayers. It’s a parallel track, not a demolition of the existing one.
