Electricity Restructuring Research: Recent work by
Pablo
T. Spiller
Interest
Group Representation in Administrative Institutions: The Impact of Consumer
Advocates and Elected Commissioners on
Regulatory Policy in the United
States
Manifesto on the
California Electricity Crisis
High
Electricity Prices in the West: What Can Be Done About it
The Introduction of Direct Access in New Zealand's Electricity Market
Folk
Theorems on Transmission Access: Proofs and Counterexamples
Implementing Open Access: With Special Emphasis On Chile's Experience
Nodal
Prices And Transmission Rights: A Critical Appraisal
Most of my current energy work deals
with the movement towards a competitive electricity market. For the last several years I have been working with
Guy Holburn,
Mario Bergara,
Shmuel Oren, Pravin Varaiya,
and
Felix Wu.
Interest Group Representation in Administrative
Institutions: The Impact of Consumer Advocates and Elected Commissioners on
Regulatory Policy in the United States
Guy L.F. Holburn and Pablo T. Spiller
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format
Abstract
We use a panel database of rate
reviews conducted for U.S. electric utilities to assess how consumer advocates
and
elected Public Utility Commission
heads affect regulatory policy and utility strategy. We find first that
utilities
postpone rate reviews in states with
consumer advocates and elected commissioners. Second, we find that, after
controlling for observed and
unobserved state characteristics, states with consumer advocates and elected
commissioners tend to grant lower
returns on equity. Third, these institutions have differential impacts on
different
types of consumer: consumer advocates
are associated with higher residential-industrial rate ratios while elected
commissioners are associated with
lower residential-industrial rate ratios.
Manifesto on the California Electricity Crisis
Generated and endorsed by an ad-hoc group of concerned
professors, former public officials, and consultants
Convened under the auspices of the Institute of Management,
Innovation, and Organization at the University of California, Berkeley
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it
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current (1/26/01) list of Manifesto endorsees
High Electricity Prices in the West: What Can
Be Done About it?
Shmuel Oren and Pablo T. Spiller
Public Utilities Forthnighly, Vol 138, No. 20., November 1, 2000
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it
In this paper the authors explain the source of the California electricity
crisis, and provides a way to limit its cost and to provide a sound basis
for a sound development of the sector.
Political Institutions and Electric Utility
Performance: A Cross Nation Analysis
Mario Bergara, Witold Henisz
and Pablo T. Spiller
Vol. 40, California
Management Review, 1998:18+.
This paper analyzes the
interaction of the institutional endowment of a country and investment in an
industry with extremely high politicization and sunk costs: electric utilities.
It links quantifiable differences in institutional environments across a wide
sample of nations to investment decisions in their respective utility sectors.
Providing credible commitments against arbitrary decision making by the state,
that may impact on the profitability of these investments, through the existence
of a number of independent constraints on executive behavior creates a better
environment for utility investment. Managers considering investment in
infrastructure projects should therefore evaluate the investment proposal not
only on its explicit terms but also on the likelihood that the government will
honor them.
Mario E. Bergara Duque and Pablo T. Spiller
ABSTRACT
New Zealand introduced completely deregulated direct access in 1994. In
this paper we provide the first assessment of one full year of direct access.
We explore the determinants of direct access penetration across all the
operating distribution companies. We find that the penetration of direct
access in New Zealand responded quite clearly to economic incentives: companies
that had unbalanced rates, that had high direct costs, that had high utilization
rates, that had low load factors and low frequency of system interruptions
had, on average, much higher rates of direct access penetration. These
results took place even though this analysis is confined to the first year
of operation, and in an environment in which the terms and conditions for
direct access are negotiated between the distribution company and each
individual direct access competitor. Thus, we suggest, that much of the
current emphasis in the US in regulating terms and conditions of direct
access is misplaced.
Journal of Regulatory Economics 1996
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to
download it, or e-mail for
a copy.
ABSTRACT
Various proposals to restructure electric power transmission systems for
an open and competitive market rely on concepts such as nodal prices, congestion
revenues, transmission rights, etc. Implicit assertions are made concerning
the regulation of transmission access, properties of economic dispatch,
and the operation of competitive power markets. In this paper we formulate
these "folk theorems" as explicit mathematical assertions, prove the ones
that are true and present counterexamples to those that are not. The concept
of contract network is a centerpiece in Professor William Hogan's recent
proposal for establishing a Poolco in the operation of a restructured electric
utility. The contract network is based on nodal pricing and transmssion
capacity rights. We provide a detailed analysis of these concepts and show
that the use of nodal pricing for transmission systems and the assignment
of transmission capacity rights are not compatible to the promotion of
economic efficiency.
Pablo T. Spiller
University of California Energy Institute
PWP-024
ABSTRACT
Chile's reforms of the electricity sector are pathbreaking: elimination
of monopoly franchise, deregulation of generation and of new generation
investments, introduction of direct access for large users, break-up of
vertically integrated utilities, centralized dispatch undertaken by a private
entity, and the introduction of an innovative regulatory system based on
marginal cost price and on the role of a putative efficient firm. After
15 years of reforms, it is time to ask whether it is possible to improve
upon a system that is, quite clearly, among the most efficient and sophisticated
in the world. This paper has two main purposes: first, to present the main
shortcomings in Chile's transmission pricing policy and possible solutions;
second, to show that this problem may not have a global optimal solution.
Shmuel
Oren, Pablo T. Spiller, Pravin
Varaiya, and Felix
Wu
The Electricity Journal, 1995
ABSTRACT
The main purpose of this paper is to challenge several claims about the
roles of nodal prices and transmission rights that have been accepted by
some practitioners and academicians involved in the discussion on the transition
towards a more competitive electricity sector, both in the U.S. and abroad.
In particular, we demonstrate the inadequacy of pricing transmission services
and compensating transmission owners on the basis of nodal price differences.
Although such application of nodal prices may be suitable in simple (i.e.,
linear or radial) networks, in networks with parallel flow paths basing
transmission pricing on nodal price differences is inappropriate. Moreover,
without extensive regulation, transmission capacity rights based on a nodal
price differences will not produce the right incentives for transmission
investment or expansion, nor will they provide appropriate compensation
for ownership of transmission assests or rights in a decentralized ownership
network. We assert that new methods to deal with transmission ownership
compensation and expansion are needed if the move towards a competitive
wholesale electricity market is not to be bogged down in a regulatory quagmire.