Ownership unbundling in electricity distribution: The case of The Netherlands

Künneke, Rolf W.; Fens, Theo

doi:10.1016/j.enpol.2006.05.008

Cited by 32 publications

(15 citation statements)

References 4 publications

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“…Accounting/functional/administrative unbundling, the firm remains integrated but reorganizes its book-keeping so that costs of the network services can be identified. And then there is management unbundling, as Kunneke and Fens, (2007) noted, in addition to the account separation, staff are assigned to different business divisions/units that function independently from other business activities but are still managed from the main company 2. Legal unbundling: the network services are provided by a separate firm that may, however, be connected with the production and trade activities of the previously integrated firm via a holding structure.…”

Section: Empirical Reviewsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Natural Gas Industry Restructuring for Value Optimisation: A Case Study of Ghana

Suleman

2020

SSRN Journal

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The global natural gas industry in emerging oil and gas producing countries faces the challenge of restructuring and regulations, making industry conduct revaluation inevitable. The main concern in restructuring the natural gas industry in these economies is how to break previously vertically integrated companies into separate business entities under an appropriate market structure along the gas value chain. There are two schools of thoughts on how to restructure the natural gas industry. The traditional school of thought favours a vertically integrated structure and the liberal school of thought advocates for competitive-based structures encompassing different regulatory reforms including ownership unbundling. The natural gas industry in Ghana, though nascent, is growing due mainly to rising demand for electricity, at about 5.8% annually. Currently GNPC owns the upstream gas, midstream infrastructures and champions final gas delivery to downstream consumers. Gas price harmonization, easing contractual agreements, maintaining the survival of GNGC, and energy security reasons are among the policy factors that seem to favour a state-owned vertically integrated structure. The aim of this paper is to examine and determine the industry structure that is optimal to sustain Ghana energy supply mix. The paper offers two natural gas industry structure models to describe the effect of unbundling infrastructure ownership of natural gas along its value chain on energy supply mix in Ghana. The paper suggests maintaining the aggregating role of GNPC is appropriate. However, the paper recommends unbundling infrastructure ownership from upstream natural gas owners. Thus, the Gas Processing Plants and Ghana National Gas Corporation (GNPC) transmission pipelines need an independent entity to operate the GNGC transmission pipeline as the National Gas Transmission Utility (NGTU) with open access allow IPPs equal access to natural gas at the market hubs.

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Section: Empirical Reviewsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Natural Gas Industry Restructuring for Value Optimisation: A Case Study of Ghana

Suleman

2020

SSRN Journal

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“…Building upon these works, Finger, Künneke, Groenewegen, Ménard, Scholten, Perennes, Domanski-Peeroo, and Crettenand studied the relationship between the technical and institutional dimension of several infrastructures (electricity, gas, railways, post) in a number of recent studies (2005)(2006)(2007)(2008)(2009)(2010)(2011)(2012)(2013)(2014)(2015) [6,18,28,31,[83][84][85][86][87][88][89][90]. They hypothesized that the economic, social, and technical performance of infrastructures is dependent on the "degree of coherence" between the technical and institutional scope of control, reaction time, and coordination mechanisms with regard to four technical functions critical for the system to meet user expectations (interoperability, interconnection, capacity management and system control) [85] (p. 13).…”

Section: The Need For An Integrated Design Approachmentioning

confidence: 99%

Towards the Comprehensive Design of Energy Infrastructures

Scholten

Künneke

2016

Sustainability

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Abstract:Energy infrastructures are increasingly perceived as complex, adaptive socio-technical systems. Their design has not kept up; it is still fragmented between an engineering and economic dimension. While economists focus on a market design that addresses potential market failures and imperfections, opportunistic behavior, and social objectives, engineers pay attention to infrastructure assets, a robust network topology, and control system design to handle flows and eventualities. These two logics may be complementary, but may also be at odds. Moreover, it is generally unclear what design choices in one dimension imply for the other. As such, we are ill-equipped to identify, interpret, and address the challenges stemming from technical innovations, e.g., the integration of renewable energy technologies, and institutional changes, e.g., liberalization or new forms of organization like cooperatives, which often have interrelated operational and market implications. In response, this paper proposes a more comprehensive design framework that bridges the engineering and economic perspectives on energy infrastructure design. To this end, it elaborates the different design perspectives and develops the means to relate design variables of both perspectives along several layers of abstraction: the form of infrastructure access of actors, the division of responsibilities among actors, and type of coordination between actors. The intention is that this way system and market design efforts can be better attuned to each other and we further our understanding and conceptualization of the interrelationship between the techno-operational and economic-institutional dimensions of energy infrastructures. The framework also aids in overseeing the broader institutional implications of technical developments (and vice versa) and stimulates awareness of lock-ins and path-dependencies in this regard.

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“…The recent changes in the electricity sector provide a good example. 22 Before its liberalisation, the electricity sector was perceived in many countries as a public utility. This can be interpreted as a specific form of embeddedness of this sector in the norms of society.…”

Section: Figurementioning

confidence: 99%

Institutional reform and technological practice: the case of electricity

Künneke¹

2008

Industrial and Corporate Change

102

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SummaryThis paper proposes a framework for categorising possible interrelations between technological and institutional change and applies this framework to the case of the restructuring of the electricity sector. It is argued that there is a need for coherence between institutions and technological practice, so as to safeguard the satisfactory functioning of electricity infrastructure. The identification of possible incoherences between institutions and technological practice allows for a better understanding of the potential drivers for change and the evolutionary processes of which they may be part. This paper attempts to elaborate the nature of this co-evolution in somewhat more detail, using specific levels of analysis that are exemplified in a four-level model. In the case of the restructuring of the electricity sector, the institutional framework has changed from a public utility-oriented, towards a market-oriented system. However, the technological practice remained unchanged: a system-oriented approach that relies on centralised planning, control and operation. This discrepancy between institutions and technological practice leads to significant frictions in the functioning of the electricity sector, but it also offers opportunities for innovation. In order to make liberalisation a success, it might be necessary to stimulate certain technical developments (i.e distributed generation and intelligent networks).

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Ownership unbundling in electricity distribution: The case of The Netherlands

Cited by 32 publications

References 4 publications

Natural Gas Industry Restructuring for Value Optimisation: A Case Study of Ghana

Natural Gas Industry Restructuring for Value Optimisation: A Case Study of Ghana

Towards the Comprehensive Design of Energy Infrastructures

Institutional reform and technological practice: the case of electricity

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