Are the current electricity market arrangements out of date?

On Tuesday 2 June 2009, nearly 50 people attended our early summer event for customers.

Attendees heard from and debated issues with Peter Atherton from Citigroup, Philip Davies from Centrica and Nigel Cornwall under the astute chairmanship of Professor Stephen Littlechild. Are the current electricity market arrangements out of date? was the theme.

The central tenet was that the tensions between competing policy objectives—affordability, low carbon, supply security and competition—are at their most acute in the electricity market arrangements. Current power market arrangements may even exacerbate these tensions and raise important commercial risks and challenges for many market participants. Against this background, Nigel made the case for a review of key aspects of the NETA regime against current policy goals and for change to the supporting governance framework. The presentation can be downloaded here, and a supporting Energy perspective is also available.