Microgrids are decentralised electricity systems that offer a local approach to the energy transition. They help to bring electricity generation closer to the consumer, facilitate the integration of renewable energy, and increase energy security. However, the implementation of microgrids currently requires regulatory exemptions as they do not fit into the existing regulatory framework. Therefore, regulatory reforms are needed. Those reforms are influenced by National Regulatory Authorities (NRAs). Although NRAs are supposed to make technical decisions, their choices have political implications for microgrid development by creating a technically (un)favourable environment. This article explores the narrative of NRAs in facilitating the development of microgrids as part of the transition towards a more sustainable energy mix. An exploratory multi-method study is applied, combining surveys and interviews with representatives from different NRAs in the EU. The article finds that despite the potential benefits of microgrids, NRAs are generally unsupportive of microgrid development. Alternative models, such as closed distribution systems and energy communities, have been proposed instead. Furthermore, the interviews reveal that the perceived costs of developing microgrids outweigh the benefits when considering the functioning of the overall electricity grid.

Australia has a long history of privately owned utility price regulation, one that is little known. This price control was designed to restrain the market power of several utilities (gas, rail, tramways, electricity, and water). The purpose of this paper, therefore, is to establish what types of price control that were used in Australia in the utilities sector before the First World War and to determine the degree to which this price control influenced efficiency. As price levels in this era were set in legislation, the lack of flexibility led to less-than-optimal outcomes, and eventually and led to new approaches were developed after 1912 to the utilities that remained in private ownership, and in some cases influenced the movement in Australia towards government control.

Digital transformation offers tremendous opportunities for emerging economies like Turkey. However, the full potential of digital advancements can only be achieved with the widespread adoption of digital technologies, which depends on the capable delivery of information and communication technologies (ICT) and their effective usability. Despite increased Internet penetration rates in Turkey in recent years, disparities in Internet adoption continue to persist. This study investigates whether and to what extent key demographic and socioeconomic factors are associated with the first-level digital divide in Turkey. The phenomenon is discussed in three aspects: device access, Internet access, and Internet use. The findings demonstrate that the vast majority of people in Turkey have Internet-enabled devices, mainly smartphones. Age, income, and education are significant predictors of Internet access. However, even when access is available, large disparities exist among gender, age, income, education, and employment groups in terms of Internet use. Moreover, our findings reveal significant regional differences in both Internet access and use. The results point to the need for a more coherent vision on ICT policies such that the need for demand-side programs are intended to stimulate broadband adoption widely by those groups. This paper provides useful pointers that can facilitate further academic research and structural decisions among policy-makers, by emphasizing the high-priority target groups.

The most solid framework to both analyze and regulate digital platforms is the one which has developed over the past century for the conceptualization and the regulation of the traditional network industries such as telecoms, transport and energy. Digital platforms in multi-sided markets can be considered the new network industries, notably due to the relevance of direct, indirect and algorithmic network effects. As a result, platforms display features which are similar to all industries where network effects are key, namely concentration, market power and subsequently political intervention. Regulatory measures that have already been tested in the traditional network industries can be exported to the new network industries, including regulation to promote competition by reducing barriers to entry, regulation to promote interoperability and structural remedies along with public service obligations imposed on platforms. Examples of this approach can be identified in different initiatives around the world, with the European Union in the lead.

The delivery of local services is one of Swiss local governments’ main tasks and has a long tradition of public provision. In the last few decades, a shift from in-house production to the corporatization of utilities has emerged in Switzerland, but the public sector is still seen as predominant in the provision of local services. This research explores the current situation of urban utilities in Switzerland and which factors influence the opportunities for the private sector in the provision of energy services at the local level. Results show that opportunities for the private sector and disruptive actors in energy services might rely on partnerships with public institutions and on innovative services.

Traditional regulatory models of natural monopoly network utilities are designed to incentivise cost-efficiency, subject to the firm achieving a certain level of reliability. With the rise of decarbonisation as a key policy goal, facilitating innovation in electricity networks has become of vital importance. Innovation and cost-efficiency may overlap and exhibit the same risk profile. However, we show that when there is a difference in their risk profile, incentivising these two tasks using the same incentive scheme is ineffective. This means incentive regulations need to be enhanced with additional modules that take into account the level of risk to which companies are exposed to for their stage of innovation activity. We also demonstrate that the issue of risk can distort the outcome of a competitive scheme for allocating innovation funds when bidders are heterogeneous in their risk attitude and there is uncertainty about recovering initial investments needed to prepare the project proposal. Thus, competitive schemes need to be designed such that they factor in risk attitude heterogeneity among bidders.

European country members have been opening up to competition railway passenger services in recent years, whereas others still remain on the way to liberalization. The recent Commission’s fourth European Union (EU) Railway Package has updated the European legislation to ensure an effective liberalization within the EU country members by 2020. It is intended to enhance firms’ efficiency and also consumers’ benefits. In this article, we study different paths towards liberalization from the traditional state-owned monopoly configuration. First, the monopoly outcome is presented, as it is the current situation in a number of EU country members. Second, the oligopoly models are introduced to study different paths towards an effective competition as a result of different market configurations. It is found that liberalization may enhance consumer surplus keeping operators’ profitability only when variable costs and access charge to the network are low. Finally, some regulatory measures are discussed.

The liberalization of utilities has generally led to the creation of an economic regulator, nominally independent of government. The United Kingdom, as a pioneer of this process, has more than 30 years of experience with independent regulators. However, by 2019, the three main regulated utilities in the United Kingdom, energy, water and rail, were in disarray with a combination of high prices, poor service and a failure to achieve the goals of competition set at the time of the reforms. Government, the companies and the regulators must all bear the blame for this situation. We focus on the regulator in this article and argue that there a number of factors behind their failings including a concentration on economic issues to the detriment of other issues such as environment and public welfare, a lack of public accountability and a poor culture in the regulators based on a view that regulatory interventions were always counterproductive. Given that regulators are appointed by government and funded by Parliamentary vote, the claim of independence is not credible and there are circumstances when government should be able to overrule regulators in the broader public interest. We suggest that expanding the range of skills among the regulatory decision makers, regular rigorous Parliamentary scrutiny and a much stronger focus on the attributes consumers require – affordability, reliability and sustainability – rather than the current obsession with competition would improve the regulators’ performance.

Market definition is the first step of competition analysis. In practice, relevant markets are mostly defined for the end products and services and it is also the same for current cases concerning Internet-based businesses (IBBs). Data has important influence on the competition of IBBs. However, instead of selling data directly, the IBBs usually use data to produce, improve and innovate products and services. Under such circumstances, there may be no relevant market defined for such data following the conventional market definition methods. This article’s investigation shows that online data play different roles in the competition of IBBs and the conventional competition analysis methods only miss some aspects but not all of them. Alternative approaches including the input market definition and the putative online data market definition proposition fail to solve the problem. What might be of help is to switch focus to improving the relevant market definition methods for products and services which online data are related to and pay more attention to the inner relationship between online data and the Internet-based products and services when identifying which market to define.

The electricity supply chain is changing due to the integration of renewable energies. Two developments are in the focus of this paper: First, the emergence of third parties and second, the requirement for information management (i.e. the management of data exchange from smart metering) as a new step in the supply chain. Information management needs to secure the neutral and non-discriminatory integration of third parties into smart grids. This can be accomplished by a collaborative governance approach. Based on veto player theory we identify two key issues for the voting process within a collaborative governance approach for information management. First, we show that a voting process based on “individual veto players” will result in governance lock-in situations, where governance innovation will be impeded. Second, we discuss that “collective veto players” can secure governance innovation for information management, but that the non-discriminatory integration for third parties might be at stake, if less than a qualified majority is required to vote on a veto.