1996

Executive Summary

In many countries of the world energy utilities and energy regulation are being reorganized in order to make markets more competitive and thereby introduce the discipline of the market. This reorganization goes by different names in different places, hence in the United States and Europe terms such as "deregulation," "restructuring," and "introducing competition" are widely used while in Australia "micro-economic reform" is common.

The advantages and disadvantages of energy sector reform have been widely discussed in other forums. The purpose of this paper is to discuss the impact of these reforms on the environment in general, and on efforts to promote increased energy efficiency in particular. This paper focuses on three situations in which reforms have already been introduced and the impact of the reforms is starting to become apparent. These situations are natural gas deregulation in the United States, electric utility restructuring in Norway, and electric and gas utility restructuring in the United Kingdom. In addition, this paper also discusses electric utility restructuring in the United States—a process that is now underway, with impacts that are starting to emerge.

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15 pp., 1996, $11.00 U962

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