We provide strong evidence that there are significant human resource constraints which limit the scale and, hence, the scope and potential effectiveness of electricity/energy regulatory agencies in developing countries. We summarise the key findings in our earlier Domah, Pollitt and Stern paper...

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...

Incentive regulation for networks has been an important part of the reform agenda in a number of countries. As part of this regulatory process, incentives are put in place to improve the cost efficiency of network companies by rewarding good performance relative to a predefined benchmark. The...

The purpose of this paper is to examine the lessons from the recent history of telecoms deregulation for the electricity (and by implication heat) network regulation. We do this in the context of Ofgem’s RPIX@ 20 Review of energy regulation in the UK, which considers whether RPI-X based price...

This paper explores demand side management (DSM) strategies, including both demand response and energy efficiency policies. The aim is to uncover what features might strengthen DSM effectiveness. We first look at key features of residential energy demand and the limits to energy indicators. We...

It is around 5 years since my colleague, Tooraj Jamasb, and I reviewed the EU’s progress with electricity reform (Jamasb and Pollitt, 2005). At that time many countries were still struggling to implement elements of the EU wide policy on electricity sector liberalisation that they had signed...

More and more companies in the UK are developing strategies to address the challenges of climate change. We focus on the UK retail sector and explore the role of partnership in shaping the climate change commitments and actions taken by retail companies. We use a social capital approach to...

In this paper we use a best practice index constructed from the survey responses of regulators in 40 countries to explore the determinants of outcomes in electricity network regulation. We construct a model of explained behaviour where we are particularly interested in understanding the impact...

The aim of this paper is to look at the UK’s renewable energy policy in the context of its overall decarbonisation and energy policies. This will allow us to explore the precise nature of the ‘failure’ of UK renewables policy and to suggest policy changes which might be appropriate in...