Learning to Collaborate on Climate

After a hiatus from renewables I'm having to recalibrate the co-existence of corporates, developers and utilities, especially outside of PJM and ERCOT. Many utilities operating in the regulated market are caught in a conundrum, telling their stakeholders that they have committed to net zero before their middle aged employees retire but finding themselves unable (excepting NextEra) to compete with independent developers with savvy financing. I'm open to be proved wrong but it just doesn't seem possible that solar and wind can be built cheaper when an additional utility return is tacked on.

Dating myself, I experienced the public appeals by traditional utilities pre deregulation to squash the independent developer due to reliability concerns. I'm not quite sure regulated utilities have totally shed their aversion to sharing the market but with corporates demanding competitively price green energy, states without a path to cheap wind/solar/batteries outside of utility offerings will lose out.

Texas has seen tremendous business and population growth, with boom towns like Austin and San Antonio having bonafide green credentials. Georgia and the Carolinas have come a long way too. But Louisiana and other Gulf Coast States will be disadvantaged if the local utility doesn't create a model that encourages lowest cost renewables. If a corporation wants to come to your state and demands the right to self generate solar to create jobs and help the climate, why make it harder?