NEW BRITAIN - Saying that electricity deregulation has failed, Democratic gubernatorial candidate Dannel Malloy called Wednesday for cutting statewide electric consumption by 15 percent within the next two years.
Connecticut repeatedly breaks electricity usage records during the scorching days of the summer, but Malloy said energy usage can be reduced in an age of computer expansion and increasing electronic gadgetry.
"What we would be talking about is a Marshall Plan for energy conservation and efficiencies,'' Malloy said. "The technology is out there.''
With temperature, light, and computer controls across the state, energy consumption can be reduced if it is made a high priority, he said.
While large commercial users have benefitted from the competition under deregulation, Malloy agreed with legislators who say flatly that deregulation has failed for the average consumer.
"You can't de-regulate, and then go to sleep,'' Malloy said outside the headquarters of the Department of Public Utility Control. "As instituted, it failed.''
Malloy, though, said he does not want to go back to the pre-deregulation days of the 1990s when the major utilities not only generated the electricity from their own plants but also distributed it.
"I'm not calling for re-regulation at this time,'' Malloy said. "It's not a choice between no regulation or only pricing regulation and a completely regulated market. The choice is to have a governor and a DPUC or an energy department fully engaged with a target of lowering costs, and that's the model that I'm going. You're asking me: do I accept another model [of re-regulation]? The answer is no. I accept my model. My model is to have a governor actively engaged with the best minds in the energy industry, working on our behalf.''