I was coming at it from a US perspective. In the US retail is still dominated by natural monopolies with service areas and captured customers so those costs are

I was coming at it from a US perspective. In the US retail is still dominated by natural monopolies with service areas and captured customers so those costs are low. There is a huge push toward the kind of retail competition you are talking about of course, however, while the growth in the sector is huge the vast majority of customers still behave as captives. https://ei.haas.berkeley.edu/research/papers/WP252.pdf https://ei.haas.berkeley.edu/research/papers/WP252.pdf As for the value chain you are right that I am simplifying but we are on an internet comment board not writing a white paper. However, the simplification doesn't matter. Whether it is vertically integrated utilities or deregulated and unbundled electricity service, the point still stands that stranded costs are overestimated to the extent that they don't account for the fact the netmetered kWhs tend to be high value, are resold at retail, and do not have to be purchased or delivered by the seller. Adding more middleman or more costs just adds accounting wrinkles (and which I think are inappropriate for the forum). If your point is that the harm is caused by a reduction in aggregate demand then that is a completely different argument.