This thesis is a contribution to the technical history of electricity supply in the region of Britain for which the Merseyside and North Wales Electricity Board assumed statutory responsibility for electricity distribution upon nationalisation of the industry in 1948. The evolution of the electric power systems in the region are considered, for the first time. against a background of emerging technology elsewhere in Britain, the United States and on the Continent. The natural resources of the region included coalfields saltfields and slate beds together with high mountains having hydro-power potential. All were to influence power system development In an area exceeding 4,700 square miles. An examination of electricity generation and distribution within this region from the first legislation in 1879 to 1948 Illustrates the variety of systems adopted and the influence of consulting engineers on their choice, Many eminent engineers representing a wide diversity of technical opinion were engaged as consultants during the formative years of the region's electricity supply industry. The consequences of early decisions were to have profound effects on later growth of Individual supply authorities and are related to developments in generation and distribution technology. The reactions to change are considered In an industry in which, at one period, technology advanced rapidly from innovation to obsolescence. The origins of municipal electricity undertakings are traced from local authority and council records, sources which have previously received little or no attention. The pioneering work at Liverpool, often in advance of developments elsewhere is examined. Despite the questionable economic validity of plants for combined refuse destruction and electricity generation many were established In the region during the period 1898 to 1904. A number of manufacturing companies developed public electricity supply systems in their locality having installed independent plants often on a scale exceeding municipal schemes of the period. The extension of supply areas beyond their municipal boundaries by local authorities following the adoption of high voltage alternating current systems are examined, Compared with developments elsewhere the hydro-electric schemes in North Wales were small, Nevertheless the pioneer exploitation of the water power resources of the Snowdonia region by the North Wales Power and Traction Company and their contribution to high voltage distribution over an extended area was a considerable achievement not paralleled elsewhere in this country. That adequate electricity supplies were essential to the nations economy was appreciated during Wor1d War One and the control then exercised by the Ministry of Munitions became the first direct Intervention by national government in the electricity supply industry. The effects of subsequent legislation on the industry are assessed Including the alternative proposals evaluated by the Electricity Commissioners when establishing a Joint Electricity Authority for North Wales and South Cheshire. The response by all sections of the industry to the McGowan Committee report of 1937 on electricity distribution is seen to be one of concern for their future. A small but notable contribution to electricity generation and distribution was made, particular1y in North Wales, by non-statutory suppliers. These have been identified and the history of a number of schemes examined. " .The work provides for the first time a comprehensive survey of the significant factors in the evolving electricity generation and distribution technology In the Merseyside and North Wales Area prior to 1948.

This thesis investigates some of the key current economic and regulatory challenges pertaining to grid development. These issues include: investment drivers, the relationship between investment and static/dynamic efficiency, and integration of distributed energy resources as alternatives to traditional network reinforcement. The thesis comprises four essays and uses a range of techniques including theoretical and empirical analysis in Chapters 2, 3, and 4; as well as conceptual modelling in Chapter 5. A common feature of the first three chapters is the usage of a dataset composed of 129 Norwegian distribution companies, observed between 2004 and 2010. The issue of investment determinants and the responsiveness of companies to the regulators’ incentives for investment have been investigated in Chapter 2. This chapter uses a Bayesian Model Averaging technique (BMA) to identify the investment drivers in regulated firms. The results of the chapter provide an insight into investment behaviour of network companies under incentive regulation. The identified investment determinants shed light on the effectiveness of investment incentives and can be used to improve the process of capital cost treatment under incentive regulation. A theoretical framework for the relationship between investment and efficiency, including the concept of “no impact efficiency”, which is defined as the revenue-neutral efficiency effect of investment under total cost benchmarking, is introduced in Chapter 3. The observed efficiency effect of investment and no impact efficiency are estimated using a Stochastic Frontier Analysis (SFA) technique. The concept of no impact efficiency is important because it describes the process under which incentive regulation, with ex-post regulatory treatment of investment, achieves investment optimality. It also provides a useful benchmark for the sector regulators to examine the investment efficiency of regulated firms. Chapter 4 explores the concept of dynamic efficiency under incentive regulation. In this respect, the notion of “inefficiency persistence” due to presence of quasi-fixed inputs, under total cost benchmarking, is introduced. The theoretical framework shows that inefficiency of regulated companies is a combination of period-specific effects (shocks) and a carry-over component from previous periods due to sluggish adjustment of capital stocks and/or production capacity. The two components of inefficiency and the rate of inefficiency transmission between periods are estimated using a dynamic stochastic frontier model in a Bayesian framework. The results show that the persistence of inefficiency can seriously affect the companies’ short run productivity and, consequently, regulated revenues. This can lead to disincentives for investment and innovation. An innovative solution to the traditional demand-driven network investment is investigated in Chapter 5. The feasibility and advantages of adopting a portfolio of distributed energy resources including distributed generation, storage, demand response and energy efficiency as alternatives to grid capacity enhancement, have been discussed. Also, a market-oriented approach termed “contract for deferral scheme” (CDS) is introduced in order to integrate these resources under an extended business model of distribution companies. The CDS contract protects the developers of distributed resources from market risks, decreases the financing costs and improves commercial bankability of investments. Additionally, CDS acts as a proxy for vertical integration and helps distribution companies to improve the efficiency of their asset utilisation.

This thesis consists of three self-contained papers on the analysis of electricity auctions written over a period of twelve years. The first paper models price competition in a decentralized wholesale market for electricity as a first-price, sealed-bid, multi-unit auction. In both the pure and mixed-strategy equilibria of the model, above marginal cost pricing and inefficient despatch of generating units occur. An alternative regulatory pricing rule is considered and it is shown that offering to supply at marginal cost can be induced as a dominant strategy for all firms. The second paper analyses strategic interaction between long-term contracts and price competition in the British electricity wholesale market, and confirms that forward contracts will tend to put downward pressure on spot market prices. A 'strategic commitment' motive for selling forward contracts is also identified: a generator may commit itself to bidding lower prices into the spot market in order to ensure that it will be despatched with its full capacity. The third paper characterizes bidding behavior and market outcomes in uniform and discriminatory electricity auctions. Uniform auctions result in higher average prices than discriminatory auctions, but the ranking in terms of productive efficiency is ambiguous. The comparative effects of other market design features, such as the number of steps in suppliers' bid functions, the duration of bids and the elasticity of demand are analyzed. The paper also clarifies some methodological issues in the analysis of electricity auctions. In particular we show that analogies with continuous share auctions are misplaced so long as firms are restricted to a finite number of bids.

Over the years 1947-86, electricity has become an important source of energy. The social, political, economic and institutional conditions under which the electricity industry has evolved in India are studied in this thesis. Though electricity demand has increased in India, due to electricity supply shortages after 1972 it was difficult to study electricity demand since no data are available on unconstrained demand. Hence, the factors affecting electricity sales are studied at all-India level for three consumer groups: i) industrial ii) agricultural and iii) "other" consumers. Since states in India differ in their characteristics, electricity sales to industrial and agricultural consumers were studied for the States of Bihar, Kerala, Maharashtra and Punjab. In this analysis, economic and econometric principles are applied to historical data. On the basis of demand theory, income elasticities were expected to be positive and the price elasticities were expected to be negative. From the analysis, it was found that income and price elasticities varied across States and across different consumer groups. Income elasticities were found to be positive and high in each case. Price elasticities were negative and very low in each case with the exception of industrial consumers in Punjab. The time-of-day ("unrestricted") demand for power in Gujarat was studied for the years 1985-86 to 1988-89. The expectation of an hourly and seasonal pattern in the ("unrestricted") demand for power was confirmed. A series of 24 seemingly unrelated equations testing the effects of employment and price on "unrestricted" demand for power at each hour of the day were analysed. It was found that the observed hourly pattern of power demand could not be affected in the desired manner with the existing pricing policy and structure in Gujarat. Pricing remains an important practical tool for managing electricity demand. Pricing also directly affects the performance of the State Electricity Board. The financial performance of Gujarat State Electricity Board was examined and found to be poor due to its pricing policy. On the basis of the literature on the theory of pricing in public enterprises, a method of calculating prices in Gujarat was derived. Due to data constraints, the estimation of prices in the period 1961-86 was limited to prices charged to all consumers of the Gujarat Electricity Board taken as a group. For similar reasons, it also ignored the response of consumers at different time of the day. The prices charged by Gujarat Electricity Board were then compared with the estimated prices. It was found that the estimated prices were higher than the prices charged by Gujarat Electricity Board in the period 1961-86. One of the consequences of low electricity prices was Gujarat Electricity Board's poor financial performance. The study concludes that it is important for the State Electricity Boards in India to study their costs and demand in order to derive a pricing policy that allows the consumer to be aware of the costs and helps the State Electricity Boards to eliminate financial losses.

The 1980s marked the beginning of market driven reforms in the electricity sector based on the standard textbook model. More than half of the economies around the world have initiated power sector reforms since late 1980s irrespective of the sector size, resource endowments, institutional capacity and economic development. Hence, this thesis qualitatively and quantitatively assesses the process and outcomes of market-based reforms evolving the electricity sector across the developing, transition and developed economies where reforms are on-going at various stages. Deriving relevant and feasible reform options and policy for the electricity sector based on the lessons learnt after considering more than two decades of reforms remains the major contribution of this thesis. Chapter one is the introductory chapter and provides an outline of the motivation and context of the thesis. Chapter two is a literature review of the experiences to date with the performance of electricity reforms across the reforming countries. The chapter identifies the knowledge gaps in the literature and sets the scene for the three substantial chapters of the thesis to follow. The third chapter assesses the issues and options in reforming small electricity sectors considering the twin complicating factors of political instability and increasing electricity demand. The reform in the small electricity sector of Nepal is cited as a specific case. Chapter four empirically investigates the often poorly explored link between power sector reforms and wider institutional reforms in the economy across different groups of transition countries. The transition countries include the countries of Central and Eastern Europe and the Former Soviet Union. Chapter five examines the degree of market integration between the relatively small all-island Irish electricity market and other wholesale electricity markets in Europe. The chapter focuses on the role of interconnections and increased cross-border trade of electricity in the creation of an integrated market for electricity in Europe. Chapter six concludes the thesis by highlighting the policy implications and areas for future research. The chapter establishes that electricity sector reform is prone to chronic political, market and regulatory failures in many reforming countries.

This thesis presents the results from an Investigation, using Organisational Ecology based techniques, into the impact of public energy policy and renewables technologies on the Electricity Generators since the industry’s privatisation in 1991. At the outset, the research goal was to understand how successive UK Governments’ energy policies could use an inferential data based approach, to enable a long-range evaluation of the factors that define energy policy and the results arising from energy policy interventions. Research and detailed investigation covered the following topics. Firstly, policy instruments, policy definition, policy formulation, policy modelling and evaluation, and the associated competition and regulatory frameworks. Secondly, the electricity sector in the UK over the period from the development and implementation of the first systems and networks in the late 1800s, to the business and technical frameworks currently used for UK electricity generation, transmission, distribution and supply. Then, the technological context of the study required an in-depth understanding of energy basics, traditional and renewable electricity generation techniques, emissions control, market trading mechanisms, environmental-based climate change, emissions trading systems and standards. Finally, understanding the academic research methods and techniques, making the selection of the most appropriate investigative theories, techniques and methods that underpinned the execution of a long-range population based study covering twenty years. Once the above had been understood, the research concentrated upon the collection, of: circa 8,000 generator company vital events, 2,000 vital events for circa 570 power plants, electricity generation cost data, EU and UK government policy and legislation, policy, macro and micro financial subsidies and incentives, macroeconomic data, UK emissions data, fuel costs, and fuel usage by the UK’s Generators. The choice of the most appropriate methods and techniques utilised for the data analysis was one of the most difficult aspects of the study, but given the nature of the data, the use of organisational ecology-based theory fragments and the field’s core methods and techniques were utilised. What sets organisational ecology apart from many social science approaches, and the reason for it becoming one of the central fields in organizational studies, is the empirical quantitative approach, which uses large-scale, longitudinal focused data collections that record the vital events surrounding corporate demography. This coupled with primary data analysis based upon the use of survival statistics differentiates the technique from most others in the social sciences. Once the theoretical baseline had been determined, it was necessary to prepare the research questions, develop the proposed theories, and develop the hypotheses to conduct the detailed research. The core research constructs adopted were: energy policy objectives and policy instrument evaluation, assessment of how market competition has been impacted by energy policy and renewables technologies and lastly determining how market competition in the electricity industry was impacted by energy policy and renewables technology. The thesis concludes with a discussion of how the research: makes a contribution to theory, makes a contribution to academic practice, makes a contribution to business practice, makes a contribution to my own work, identifies areas for further research, discusses my reflective thoughts on the doctoral journey, and finally presents my own thoughts and evaluation of the work.

Electricity is a vital instrument for economic growth and human development. The measure of growth in developing countries like Bangladesh is synonymous with the level of electricity use. Energy (oil) price shocks are often identified as a source of macroeconomic fluctuations since they affect economic development as well as business cycle. Accordingly, it has been argued that electricity market reforms are a possible tool to improve economic performance, efficiency, welfare and overall economic development. The Bangladesh economy is vulnerable to energy (oil) price shocks and the government has adopted different electricity reform policies in the past few years. However, there is a real gap in the energy literature with regard to the qualitative and quantitative analysis of the consequences of energy (oil) price shocks and electricity market reforms towards the Bangladesh economy. This thesis is divided into two main parts. The first part contains two chapters titled, “A Survey of Literature” and “Energy Scenario in Bangladesh” which extensively review the related literature and underline the research gaps that this thesis intends to address. The second part of this thesis includes three novel papers in the literature on energy (oil) prices, electricity market reforms and the macro economy, all applied to the case of Bangladesh: “Energy Price Shocks and Real Business Cycle”, “A DSGE Analysis of Oil Price Shocks” and “A DSGE Analysis of the Welfare Effects of Alternative Electricity Pricing Schemes”. The following research questions are addressed: 1. How important aggregate energy price shocks are to explain business cycle fluctuations for the Bangladesh economy? 2. How would oil price shocks affect the macro economy of a small, oil importing, developing country like Bangladesh? 3. How would electricity market reforms affect the Bangladesh Economy? To answer these questions we develop a Real Business Cycle (RBC) model and a Dynamic Stochastic General Equilibrium (DSGE) model for Bangladesh, the latter including a detailed model of the energy (electricity) sector which has not been attempted before in the literature. We conclude that the RBC model does a reasonable job in capturing the qualitative changes of selected endogenous variables considering the energy and productivity shocks. We find that oil price shocks have a negative welfare effect on consumers and GDP. However, industry expands to produce more exportable goods as higher oil price makes the country worse off with regard to Terms of Trade (TOT). Lower wage and capital interest rate allow industry to employ more labour and capital and increase production. Our results also reveal that electricity reform policies (restructuring of prices and subsidy arrangements) increase household welfare and GDP in Bangladesh. Given our results, it is advisable that policymakers carefully assess the overall welfare effect of oil price shocks and electricity market reforms and when appropriate take some measures to redistribute welfare across sectors. The heterogeneity nature of the households would be more appropriate for policy analysis and the analysis of these redistribution policies is left for future research. As some other developing countries face the same issues as Bangladesh, the novel framework and results of this thesis are of relevance not only for Bangladesh but also for developing countries in general.

The evolving role of distributed generation (OG) in the electricity network is a commonly debated topic in academic, political and industrial fields. A range of benefits is noted, including the potential to support electricity demand at peak times and thereby reduce investment in other aspects of the electricity system. As market structures develop and the aggregator industry grows at a high pace, the need to quantify the impact of the increase in DG is vital. This project addresses key research objectives surrounding the various impacts of OG projects to DG owners and network operators - at transmission and distribution level. The project focused on two particular areas: the logistical and financial impacts for the DG owners and the longer term environmental impact of extended DG use for network operators, in the form of network investment deferral and avoidance. The project has focused on standby generators, rather than a number of other DG technologies, due to their prevalence globally and their current high usage level in ancillary service markets and within commercial properties across the UK and worldwide, including the M&S estate. Although often considered a quick and easy change to the network, the logistical impact and prerequisites for running DG projects for grid support has not been investigated on a broad scale. This thesis identifies the process that a company wishing to use DG equipment for grid support must go through in order to bring a project from initiation to implementation. The research has identified financial benefits of running standby generators for grid support inherent in the electricity pricing structure of up to 14p/kWh, available in some regions. However, upfront investment and time needed to implement a project can reduce project viability and increase payback periods. Network investment deferral is a well evaluated concept from a financial perspective, but this thesis shows that it is important to consider the carbon emissions from network investment and its deferral. Proxies are developed to convert financial investment in the electricity network into carbon emissions, based on an existing life cycle assessment survey of the GB electricity network. It is shown that, depending on the region, network investment can represent up to 7kgC02 per 1GBP of investment. These proxies are applied to the 2015-2023 investment planning timeframe in the GB network, RII0-ED1, to show that RIIO investment could represent 10,000tC02 in just one DNO region.

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There is now extensive academic and policy literature on pressures to rethink prevailing logics of energy governance in response to a range of, challenges and opportunities from factors including, carbon reduction, concerns about the security of imported oil and gas, the exploitation of new fuel reserves, continued opposition to nuclear energy and new agendas of decentralised energy generation. Decarbonisation is a key element of those debates about a new energy governance reflecting the influence of carbon policy in the present and the future. The new energy governance is affecting many countries. This thesis focuses on the changing context for energy governance, and especially electricity generation and supply in the USA. Electricity generation is selected as the primary focus in order to explore factors such as new models of decentralised energy generation. The thesis presents an in-depth case study of the state of Georgia, and especially the changing strategies for the state energy provider, Georgia Power in response to changing economic and environmental imperatives in electricity generation and supply and lobbying from a range of key stakeholders. The case study is based on 25 interviews with key stakeholders, including Georgia Power officials, state energy regulators (public service commissioners), federal, regional and state agency representatives, industrial associations, clean energy businesses, environmental and consumer advocates and political organisations. The case study focuses on a range of key issues that mark tensions in the transition from the prevailing mode of energy governance, notably developing federal regulations, pressure for decentralisation and new nuclear development. The thesis makes a number of key contributions to literature and debate on energy governance. By providing in-depth investigation of a context for energy transition/new energy governance that has not previously been researched, revealing new bottom up coalitions for decentralised supply and the importance of electricity pricing in influencing policy decisions.