Evolution of Global Electricity Markets

Chapter 19

Evolution of Australia’s National Electricity Market

Alan Moran^a and Rajat Sood^b,    ^aInstitute of Public Affairs, Melbourne, Australia, ^bFrontier Economics, Melbourne, Australia

1 Introduction

The Australian electricity supply industry has undergone substantial pro-competitive reform over the last two decades. In the early 1990s, virtually all electricity was supplied through vertically integrated state monopolies. Within a decade, the integrated monopolies had been disaggregated into different businesses with the competitive aspects of supply (generation and retailing) reconstituted into dozens of independent firms, many of them privately owned and the rest “corporatized” and operating at arm’s length from their government owners. ...