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...

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...

The energy market liberalisation process in Europe is increasingly focused on electricity market integration and related cross border issues. This signals that the liberalisation of national electricity markets is now closer to the long-term objective of a single European energy market. The...

There are two difficulties in doing an objective evaluation of the performance of decision-making units (DMUs). The first one is how to treat undesirable outputs jointly produced with the desirable outputs, and the second one is how to treat uncontrollable variables, which often capture the...

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...

In order to achieve overall economic efficiency, incentive regulation of electricity distribution utilities must address two important and inter-related issues. First, the utilities’ allowed revenues need to be set at correct levels. Second, the access charging mechanism by which the utilities...

In this paper, we discuss the choice and use of benchmarks in each of five areas relevant to an assessment of the progress of EU electricity sector liberalisation. These areas are market design, market power, EU enlargement, regulation, and sustainability. Our aim is to discuss the most...

In this paper, we postulate that some of the best opportunities for reducing energy demand and carbon emissions are through stronger involvement and leadership from local government. We show that local government can and do have a significant impact on both energy production and energy...

Improving the efficiency and performance of the UK residential sector is now necessary for meeting future energy and climate change targets. Building Performance Evaluation and Certification (BPEC) tools are vital for estimating and recommending cost effective improvements to building energy...

Due to a shortage of data and increased international mergers, national energy regulators are looking to international benchmarking analyses for help in setting price controls within incentive regulation. We present an international benchmarking study of 63 regional electricity distribution...