The New York Independent System Operator’s (NYISO) announcement that the competitive market failed to get enough new energy supply for New York City and Long Island next summer should concern all New Yorkers.

Last week, the Edison Electric Institute, the national trade association of public utilities, published a letter admitting that competitive wholesale markets are no longer working. EEI advocates a return to direct state oversight and utility ownership of new generation and grid investment.

As someone who has managed and regulated electric utilities and competitive markets in the United States and Australia for more than 35 years, I am not surprised. The transition from a fossil and nuclear fueled 20th century power system to a modern energy system is hard.

Affordable and reliable energy requires a distributed energy system — customer-owned distributed energy resources (DER), like rooftop solar, batteries, and smart appliances working in consort with clean, flexible, gridscale energy resources. Markets alone won’t achieve this transition -we need........

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