Why are transformers weird?
Transformers are this oddly bespoke product. I've attached a couple of photos showing a transformer being made in the 1940s and one being made today. It's hard to see a difference. That's weird, right?
The DOE says we use 80,000 different types of transformers. While I'm far from an expert on transformers, I do understand the unfortunate economic incentives our electricity sector has provided for the past century. Once we turned the industry from a dynamic and competitive one into all monopolies, competitive pressure ceased to exist. That usual ruthless pressure to lower costs and improve the product disappeared. Competitive industries would have pursued transformer standardization to drive down costs and improve reliability.
Making that incentive worse, utilities increase profit by spending capital, so their incentive is the opposite of a competitive industry's. They're okay with expensive and bespoke transformers. The transformer manufacturers have spent a century responding to these those: customers who want a bespoke product and don't care about the cost. Therefore, no one should be surprised that we have a transformer shortage in the U.S.
If I were to design a Consumer Regulated Electricity (CRE) system, I would standardize everything including transformers. Standardization lowers the production costs, increases the reliability, makes it easier to train personnel, and simplifies equipment replacement. Standardization also allows for automation which will greatly speed manufacturing of new transformers.
Transformers therefore represent just one way a CRE system could innovate and ultimately, lower its cost and improve reliability. Perhaps more importantly, a CRE system could show regulators what they're missing in the regulated sector.
Everyone talks about electricity in terms of "affordability." That's because, without a competitive market, we don't know what it should cost so we gauge it by, "does it feel affordable?" Would electricity cost the same as today in a competitive market? It's possible but highly unlikely. Would electricity in a competitive market cost 25% less? 50% less? Since the industry has been driven by monopolies for a century, my guess is the answer is closer to 50% if not greater. If we saw prices that low in a CRE system, we would no longer consider today's electricity to be affordable.
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