How will the introduction of electricity market competition affect power generation and transmission technology? Which technologies are most likely to receive a push from competitive markets? These are the questions examined in this review, which considers a wide range of options in both...

This book assesses experience in reforming electricity markets in OECD countries over the past decade, focusing on the issues that are critical for successful liberalisation. Experiences and examples in the study are drawn mainly from the UK, Australian, Nordic and North Eastern United States...

Electric power in OECD countries is mostly produced by large central generating stations, then transmitted along high voltage lines to local distribution systems that carry it to final consumers. Distributed generation plants are different. They produce power on an electricity consumer’s own...

"Re-powering" refers to the process of replacing older power stations with ones that are more efficient and more powerful, but the term also lends itself to market design. To facilitate the transition to a low-carbon economy, electricity markets will need to be "re-powered": older market...

The Nordic region is at the forefront of the global growth of electric mobility. The Nordic Electric Vehicle Outlook (NEVO) aims to identify and discuss recent developments of electric mobility in the five Nordic countries: Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden. The report assesses the...

A number of renewable electricity technologies, such as wind, wave, tidal, solar, and run-of-river hydro share a characteristic that distinguishes them from conventional power plants: their output varies according to the availability of the resource. This is commonly perceived to be challenging...

Electricity production is responsible for 32% of total global fossil fuel use, accounting for 132 EJ, and 41%, or 10.9 Gt of energy-related CO2 emissions. Improving the efficiency of electricity production therefore offers economic benefits and a significant opportunity for reducing dependence...

China is the world’s largest producer and consumer of coal, and an increasingly important participant on the international coal market. Paradoxically, while China is now a major coal exporter, it is also a coal importer. As China commits itself to further economic reform and increased...

In 2005, China added the equivalent of all the power plants in Norway and Sweden to its electricity generating capacity - and its remarkable demand growth shows no sign of abating. But how can the government best assure affordable and environmentally sustainable electricity supply in the future?...