So what did cause the California energy crisis?...

The generators who profited from the high prices in California point towards a regional shortage of capacity and the impact of environmental regulations. The California Independent System Operator (ISO), whose board was chaired by the generators until January 2001, agreed on this point. After the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) reorganized the board, the ISO blamed the high prices on a combination of system problems and market manipulation. Detailed research indicates that the problem was a combination of market manipulation and operator failure. The most accurate description of events is that a series of perverse rules and incentives at the California energy market institutions managed to create shortage from surplus. Many of the facts may never be known. The California ISO was amazingly incurious about events until FERC changed the composition of their board in January. Forced outages among the generators were not logged, data were poorly and erroneously compiled, and what little information was available was classified as secret...

As experiments with deregulation sputter, a new generation of municipally owned electric utilities is emerging...The electricity rebellion is spreading. Around California, a handful of cities are forming municipal utilities and dozens more are looking into it. In San Francisco, voters thwarted a power coup last November by just 500 votes, leading organizers to regroup for a second try. Meanwhile, a handful of Florida cities are looking at public power, as are cities in New York, Kansas, Michigan and Oregon.