Book Description

In 1991 energy in the UK underwent a unique and fundamental transformation, with the privatisation of the electricity supply industry. This is the first book to fully assess the experiment. It first explains how - and why - the British electricity supply industry was privatised. It then identifies the subsequent changes in electricity prices, profits, employment, investment, nuclear power and renewables, and the extent to which each of these was due solely to privatisation or to other factors, or could have been achieved by reform of the previous model, rather than privatisation. Finally, the book analyses the key unresolved issues of regulation, introducing competition into the domestic energy market in 1998, supply security, and other long-term strategic considerations. Throughout, it distinguishes between the uniquely British elements of the experience and those which can be drawn upon by other countries embarking upon similar reforms. Today, governments throughout the world are looking to the UK's experience as a potential prototype for the restructure of their own electricity supply industries. For them, and for electricity utilities, fuel and power plant suppliers, regulation authorities, financial analysts, international agencies, journalists and academics alike, this thorough and pragmatic study will be essential reading.