This book covers the current trends and challenges faced by regulators, policymakers, and researchers in the field of retail electricity market design and regulation. It addresses the role that "smart" technologies are playing in reshaping how utilities and consumers interact with each other and with their generating technologies. The book covers topics including smart meter adoption, dynamic pricing, demand response, distributed and utility-scale solar, technology costs trends, and the microeconomic theory that governs our understanding of retailer and consumer incentives. Existing inefficiencies of transmission and distribution network pricing as well as the potential regulatory approaches that can be used to remedy them are discussed along with the advantages of retail competition and draw attention to the barriers that currently are preventing all of the benefits of retail competition from materializing. The book uses very recent data to provide the most up-to-date overview of retailing trends and policies in the USA, Europe, Asia, Oceania, and Latin America.

The book will be useful for researchers and regulators and policymakers.

Inhalt

Introduction - Two Paths to the Future of Electricity Retailing.- Drivers of Change in the Retail Electricity Sector.- Regulatory Barriers to Change.- Current State of Retail Markets.- Current State of Deployment.- Technologies Providing Distribution Network Services.- Possible Futures of Electricity Retailing.- Directions for Future Research.