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...

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...

This report examines “open access” policies and approaches in various contexts, including fixed and mobile access networks, backhaul and backbone networks, undersea cables and Internet exchange points (IXPs). It finds that open access arrangements share some common elements: they refer to...

This research study is the result of a collaboration between the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the Internet Society (ISOC) and UNESCO. The study was initially presented at the sixth annual meeting of the Internet Governance Forum (IGF) on 27 September 2011 in...