On both sides of the Atlantic the regulation of gas transmission networks has undergone major changes since the early 1990’s. Whereas in the US the long-standing regime of cost-plus regulation was complemented by increasing pipe-to-pipe competition, most European countries moved towards...

Liberalisation has had a marked effect on innovative activities in the electricity industry. R&D and patenting activities are generally regarded respectively as innovative inputs to and outputs from technological progress. Electricity reforms have resulted in a reduction in R&D spending in the...

Interconnections can be an effective way to increase competition in wholesale electricity markets in particular for smaller markets with few actors. This paper quantitatively examines the potentials for interconnections in the Irish Single Electricity Market (SEM). We use a time-varying Kalman...

In order to overcome the incentive of excessive maintenance reductions and insufficient network investments in incentive regulation of electricity distribution companies, regulators throughout Europe have started regulating quality of service in the energy sector. In this paper, we discuss the...

In recent years smart metering of electricity demand has attracted attention around the world. A number of countries and regions have started deploying new metering systems; and many others have set targets for deployment or are undertaking trials. Across the board advances in technology and...

Following the liberalisation of network industries there has been a number of innovations in incentive regulation. This paper examines the effects of the application of norm models within an ex-post incentive regulation of electricity distribution networks in Sweden. We first examine the...

Liberalisation of generation and supply activities in the electricity sectors is often followed by regulatory reform of distribution networks. In order to improve the efficiency of distribution utilities, some regulators have adopted incentive regulation schemes that rely on performance...

Quality of service is of major economic significance in natural monopoly infrastructure industries and is increasingly addressed in regulatory schemes. However, this important aspect is generally not reflected in efficiency analysis of these industries. In this paper we present an efficiency...

The world-wide electricity sector reforms have led to a search for alternative and innovative approaches to regulation to promote efficiency improvement in the natural monopoly electricity networks. A number of countries have used incentive regulation models based on efficiency benchmarking of...

This paper reviews the recent experience of the UK electricity distribution sector under incentive regulation. The UK has a significant and transparent history in implementing incentive regulation in the period since 1990. We demonstrate the successes of this period in reducing costs, prices and...