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Twenty years ago, it was easy to classify companies such as Ryder/P-I-E, Consolidated Freightways and Yellow Freight System as less-than-truckload carriers: simply put, that was the type of freight they [...]

As deregulation changes the utility market, service providers are facing a multitude of new challenges. In their regulated markets, they had virtually 100 percent market share, a percentage that can [...]

Australian territories of New South Wales, Victoria, and the ACT are opening the electricity retail market to small-medium business users. Domestic customers account for almost 90% of individual bills and 35% to 70% of total consumption. Furthermore, convincing customers to switch will depend on which companies survive and which ones merge. Gas distribution and retail businesses are also being privatized.

Ongoing developments in the deregulation of the electric power industry are raising issues concerning state utility taxes. The US Supreme Court's 1997 decision in General Motors v. Tracy, which holds that Ohio could force GM to pay tax on out-of-state fuel purchases, further complicates the issue. The approaches taken by Pennsylvania and New York in the deregulation of electric and natural gas utilities respectively, and the related constitutional issues, are discussed in detail.

Social resistance to deregulation of the energy industry in the industrial nations can be overcome by implementing privatized compliance monitoring methods. A deposit-refund pollution control model is a cost-effective incremental way to privatize enforcement by placing compliance burdens on emitters rather than on regulators. Private compliance monitoring can help address issues such as potential environmental damage, regulatory bureaucracy, and lack of funding.

Gas and electric companies feel the impact of deregulation on their operations and customer service like telecom service providers. Gas and electric companies face declining markets, increasing competition, technological obsolescence, increased price volatility, commoditization of products, and downsizing. Gas and electric companies that provide superior customer service and build customer loyalty will remain competitive in the future.

California's decision to change their utilities regulation strategy to one based on performance-based regulation is being watched closely by the rest of the nation. California adopted retail wheeling to give consumers more choice, hoping to lower prices. The next step was the unbundling of electric services to allow for more targeted marketing, which will allow the market to determine capacity and promote conservation. It remains to be seen if the industry can remain vertically integrated in such a marketplace., The California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) issued an order on April 20 proposing radical reform of the state's utility regulation. Specifically, the order would replace traditional cost-of-service regulation with competition [...]

Regulators should not exert least-cost and spot pricing demands on the public utilities market without allowing incentives for long-term, fixed-price contracts. Regulators should pursue unbundled services and rely on deregulated market forces to govern the utilities market. Long-term contracts should be preapproved and incentives, rather than regulations, should be used to achieve efficiency of cost and production. Absolute reliance on spot-pricing could lead to extreme fluctuations in pricing and would dissuade long-term investments., A trio of tenets state regulators can use to maximize benefits from natural gas and emission allowance markets. A DRAMATIC CHANGE HAS OCCURRED IN RECENT YEARS IN THE ROLE MARKETS [...]

Deregulation in the public utilities industry could follow the same patterns set by the deregulation of the telecommunications industry. Vertically integrated companies have become a target of divestiture, and independent power producers (IPPs) have been allowed into the electric utilities market the way that regional holding companies (RHCs) were established in the telecommunications market. The government continues to restrict competition between IPPs, RHCs and the more institutional service providers in their industries. However, their competition with one another is becoming more prevalent., IN THE MAJOR INDUSTRIES HISTORICALLY CLASSIFIED AS PUBLIC UTILITY, COMPETITION, PROMOTED BY A VARIETY OF GOVERNMENT POLICIES, IS NOW A PERVASIVE INFLUENCE. A decade ago, antitrust law enforcers consummated a [...]

The Spanish electricity market is controlled by four regionally based companies, Iberdrola, Union Fenosa, Hidroelectrica del Cantrabrico and Endesa. The Spanish government have introduced legislation to liberalise the electricity market in order to reduce costs by at least 8% by the year 2001. The Electricity law initially only allows competition to supply companies using 15 GWh in 1998 but by 2007-8 all electricity users, including domestic households, will be able to use the supply market. Some 39% of the generation market is produced by coal with nuclear power taking a 34% share.

The 1997 World Energy Engineering Congress in Atlanta, GA, on Nov 19, 1997 included a panel discussion on the impact of utility deregulation. While one panel member claimed that deregulation is an occurrence that will take place in all utilities, another commented that it is a process that involves a number of significant phases. The panel members included such industry experts as Energywiz Pres Lindsay Audin, New Energy Venture VP Dan Griffiths and EUA Cogenex director of project development Manny Patino.

The increasing deregulation of the $200 billion-a-year electric utilities business is compelling utility marketers to think about the products that they can develop to capture market share in the new environment. As states across the country open up competition in the market, utilities are responding by creating new products and brands that will attract the interest of customers. Streamlining is already being observed in the industry, with companies trying to improve efficiency of operations and promoting innovation. Many firms in the electricity sector, as well as in the $70 billion-a-year natural gas industry, are choosing to merge or enter strategic alliances to achieve economies of scale. Other firms are transforming themselves into utility providers by hiring commodity traders. In the coming years, utilities may come to provide such nontraditional services as cable TV or Internet access and household appliances sales.

The electric utilities industry is embarking on a period of profound restructuring and change. Under pressure from consumers seeking access to cheaper electricity and from producers looking to break into new markets, the monopolistic, vertically-integrated structure that has characterized the electric power industry since the early 20th century will probably disintegrate. By the mid-21st century, industry experts predict that the utilities industry will be just as deregulated as the telecommunications industry in the 1990s., The nation's electric utility industry is entering a period of massive change and restructuring. Competitive forces are transforming the market as electricity users demand access to cheaper power and suppliers [...]

The privatization of nuclear generator British Energy is to begin in May 1996, backed by a 4 million pounds sterling promotional campaign and amid doubts whether the company should be floated because of its potential safety problems. Separately, it is expected that the Fossil Fuel Levy rate will be reduced following the sell-off of British Energy and consumer electricity prices should fall by up to 7%.

The success of the transition to a deregulated and fully competitive electric industry will be contingent on the recovery of historical costs by electric utilities with the greatest financial stakes in the previous system. Having borne the brunt of infrastructural, production and transmission costs under a regulated system, utilities will resist deregulation unless some form of compensation accompanies reform., Much of the impetus for the movement to competitive power markets is a result of the tremendous variance in energy prices across the country. Large commercial and industrial customers are [...]

State utility regulators are weighing the potential advantages and disadvantages of retail- wheeling in the electric utilities industry. Retail-wheeling refers to the provision of power by a utility outside its service territory by using the transmission network of another utility. Proponents think that retail-wheeling will improve the structure and provision of power by utilities while universally lowering the price of electricity. Detractors believe retail- wheeling will create a monopolistic industry under which the provision of power will become unreliable and the consumer will be victimized., Retail wheeling has hit the electric utility industry by storm, as evidenced by the fact that more than 20 states currently have reviews, investigations or pilot programs under way. No [...]

Deregulation in the public utilities industry has brought a host of benefits. Rates have dropped due in part to the increased efficiency, investment risk has shifted from ratepayers to developers and technological innovations have allowed for greater environmental awareness. However, power purchasing arrangements continue to hamper the deregulation process, and a lack of industry cooperation puts both independent power producers and public utility companies at a disadvantage when dealing with Congress and foreign markets., Seven years ago, when I joined the National Independent Energy Producers (NIEP) as its first executive director, I was daunted by the task in front of me. I had a [...]

Public utilities companies will need to alter their marketing and management strategies to remain competitive after deregulation. Customers' desire for value-added products must be met by an industry that has long enjoyed a monopoly. Individual companies must bolster their information networks to monitor and respond to competitive changes within the industry. Additionally, utilities companies must reform their style of management to promote greater efficiency., LAST YEAR, FORTUNE MAGAZINE RAN AN ARTICLE CALLED 'DINOSAURS?,' DESCRIBING HOW TODAY'S CORPORATE POWERHOUSES CAN BE TOMORROW'S BUSINESS SCHOOL AUTOPSY. The article focused on conditions at IBM, GM, and Sears, [...]

Last year, China was one of the few countries that still prohibited its banks from diversifying into other financial areas, such as mutual funds or insurance. That law changed in [...]

Water customer champion the Ofwat National Customer Council (ONCC) has warned that domestic and small business customers are not ready for retail competition. It weighed up whether the long-term benefits [...]

by Karma Ockenden The government has lost the political will to open up the water market to competition and is set to disappoint those eager for change when it publishes [...]