This report looks at how investors have responded to the need to internalise investment risk in power generation and how these responses have affected the organisation of the power sector and technology choices. This study looks at several cases of volatile prices in IEA countries’ electricity...

Most IEA countries are liberalising their electricity markets, shifting the responsibility for financing new investment in power generation to private investors. No longer able to automatically pass on costs to consumers, and with future prices of electricity uncertain, investors face a much...

Electric power in OECD countries is mostly produced by large central generating stations, then transmitted along high voltage lines to local distribution systems that carry it to final consumers. Distributed generation plants are different. They produce power on an electricity consumer’s own...

Electricity shortages can paralyse our modern economies. All governments fear rolling black-outs and their economic consequences, especially in economies increasingly based on digital technologies. Over the last two decades, the development of markets for power has produced cost reduction,...

Saving Electricity in a Hurry describes some of the recent power blackouts – from Norway to New Zealand and from Tokyo to Arizona – and the policies these regions used to quickly reduce their power consumption. It shows that countries can quickly reduce electricity consumption without...

Blackouts are normally the result of imbalances in electricity supply and demand. A brief blackout is mostly an inconvenience, but persistent shortfalls--those lasting days, weeks, or months--can cause economic disruption and danger to human life in our technology-rich societies. This...