ABSTRACT

The recently observed trends of liberalization of electricity markets that are strongly supported by the recent changes in the legal environment encourage the departure from the traditional organization of production and distribution of electricity. Traditionally, a typical electricity market in most urban and populated regions could be characterized by a fully vertically integrated single firm controlling and performing all the activities related to the provision of electricity. This includes owning and operating the production capacity at the power plant level, the owning and controlling of the transmission lines from the power plant to the local distribution center and owning and managing the distribution of electricity to the final consumers.