Climate change and security of supply policies are driving us towards a decarbonization of the electricity system. It is in this context that smart grids are being discussed. Electricity grids, and hence their regulatory frameworks, have a key role to play in facilitating this transformation of...

In the current context of a decarbonizing electricity system, grid innovation is needed to deal with the main challenges of integrating distributed generation, demand and storage, and large-scale renewable energy sources. Grid companies however have disincentives to innovate under the...

This paper first reviews some of the main contributions of the new institutional economics to the analysis of the process of competitive transformation of network industries. It shows that neo-institutional analysis is complementary to the microeconomics of rational pricing, since it accounts...