The electricity market has experienced enormous setbacks in delivering on the promise of deregulation. In theory, deregulating the electricity market would increase the efficiency of the industry by producing electricity at lower costs and passing those cost savings on to customers. As Electricity Deregulation shows, successful deregulation is possible, although it is by no means a hands-off process—in fact, it requires a substantial amount of design and regulatory oversight. This collection brings together leading experts from academia, government, and big business to discuss the lessons learned from experiences such as California's market meltdown as well as the ill-conceived policy choices that contributed to those failures. More importantly, the essays that comprise Electricity Deregulation offer a number of innovative prescriptions for the successful design of deregulated electricity markets. Written with economists and professionals associated with each of the network industries in mind, this comprehensive volume provides a timely and astute deliberation on the many risks and rewards of electricity deregulation.

The energy transition requires substantial amounts of metals such as copper, nickel, cobalt and lithium. Are these metals a key bottleneck? We identify metal-specific demand shocks, estimate supply elasticities and pin down the price impact of the energy transition in a structural scenario analysis. Metal prices would reach historical peaks for an unprecedented, sustained period in a net-zero emissions scenario. The total value of metals production would rise more than four-fold for the period 2021 to 2040, rivaling the total value of crude oil production. Metals are a potentially important input into integrated assessments models of climate change.

What will electricity and heat demand look like in a low-carbon world? Ambitious environmental targets will modify the shape of the electricity sector in the twenty-first century. 'Smart' technologies and demand-side management will be some of the key features of the future of electricity systems in a low-carbon world. Meanwhile, the social and behavioural dimensions will complement and interact with new technologies and policies. Electricity demand in the future will increasingly be tied up with the demand for heat and for transport. The Future of Electricity Demand looks into the features of the future electricity demand in light of the challenges posed by climate change. Written by a team of leading academics and industry experts, the book investigates the economics, technology, social aspects, and policies and regulations which are likely to characterize energy demand in a low-carbon world. It provides a comprehensive and analytical perspective on the future of electricity demand.

There is a need for fundamental changes in the ways society views electric energy. Electric energy must be treated as a commodity which can be bought, sold, and traded, taking into account its time-and space-varying values and costs. This book presents a complete framework for the establishment of such an energy marketplace. The framework is based on the use of spot prices. In general terms: o An hourly spot price (in dollars per kilowatt hour) reflects the operating and capital costs of generating, transmitting and distributing electric energy. It varies each hour and from place to place. o The spot price based energy marketplace involves a variety of utility-customer transactions (ranging from hourly varying prices to long-term, multiple-year contracts), all of which are based in a consistent manner on hourly spot prices. These transactions may include customers selling to, as well as buying from, the utility. The basic theory and practical implementation issues associated with a spot price based energy marketplace have been developed and discussed through a number of different reports, theses, and papers. Each addresses only a part of the total picture, and often with a somewhat different notation and terminology (which has evolved in parallel with our growing experience). This book was xvii xviii Preface written to serve as a single, integrated sourcebook on the theory and imple mentation of a spot price based energy marketplace.

Explains the economics of electricity at each step of the supply chain: production, transportation and distribution, and retail.

"This book contains the proceedings of an NBER conference held in Washington, DC, on May 13-14, 2010"--Page xi.