"Given the relatively small segment of the population that faces genuine affordability problems in Latin America, there appears to be a promising case for using targeted subsidies to reconcile the cost recovery objective with social protection concerns. Social tariff schemes of various kinds are...

"Subsidies to residential utility customers are popular among policymakers, utility managers, and utility customers alike, but they are nonetheless the subject of much controversy. Utility subsidies are seen as a way to help make utility service affordable for poor households and as an...

"The author first describes those features of the electricity supply industry that make a prospective market monitoring process essential to a well-functioning wholesale market. Some of these features are shared with the securities industry, although the technology of electricity production and...

In the second half of the 1980s, several electricity companies in developed countries incorporated the automation of the reads of the consumption meters installed in their customers' premises. Adoption of that approach was driven in all the cases by the need to lower the significant costs of...

Tariffs are low in Azerbaijan and need to be raised to finance badly needed network maintenance and to balance supply and demand. This study presents an analysis of the short-term impacts of a 50 percent electricity tariff increase on residential consumers. The study starts by reviewing...

This paper develops a number of approaches to power sector planning that respond to the uncertainties that Afghanistan faces. It aims to provide an alternative to the "predict then act" approach to planning, which will allow more robust decision making. The paper is divided into two parts: the...

This companion piece to the Fall 2022 ECA Economic Update provides an overview of the policy options available to countries to respond to the energy price shock and examines how this crisis could harness the clean energy transition to enhance collective energy security. The options to support...

It is very likely that an energy crunch could hit several countries in Eastern Europe and Central Asia (ECA) in the next five or six years. Before the financial crisis of 2008, several electricity importing countries in the region had begun to experience difficulties with supply; however, the...