A Functional Legal Design for Reliable Electricity Supply : How Technology Affects Law »

The liberalisation and international integration of electricity markets have led to a dramatic increase in the complexity of the electricity sector. Rather than hierarchical control, it is the legal framework ('rules of the game') that determines the behaviour of actors such as power generators, traders and network operators. Because of the unusual technical and economic characteristics of electricity markets, their performance is very sensitive to the formulation of the legal framework. Still, a structured approach to formulating the legal framework has not yet been developed. This book meets this demand.

List of Tables

List of Figures

1 Electricity supply: from monopoly to complexity 1

2 Research framework 23

3 System description 43

4 Legal organisation 65

5 Public policy goals 91

6 Legal constraints 111

7 Design method 163

8 An inventory of critical technical functions 209

9 Electricity generation 227

10 Maintenance of the energy balance 239

11 Generation adequacy 277

12 Network operations 311

13 Congestion management 329

14 Transport adequacy 365

15 Merchant investment in interconnectors? 391

16 Validation of the method 417

17 Conclusion 449

18 Reflection 469

App Case study: the maintenance of the energy balance 487

Bibliography 519

List of EC Legislation 535

Summary 537

Samenvatting 549

Curriculum vitae 565