ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the nature of the power industry, the traditional way of organizing the production and exchange of the commodity, the rationale and demands for reforming the industry and different models of restructuring suggested by scholars. It discusses different experiences of reforming the power industry in some developed, developing and transition economies, which have very different political, economic and social systems, restricting and conditioning the reforms. The electric power industry around the world has long been structured as an industrial organization based on vertical and horizontal integration and a regulated supply monopoly by public or private utility companies. Reforms in the power industry started in the United States at the end of the 1970s not as an intentional measure to restructure the power industry but as a default of policies for energy conservation. The Public Regulatory Policies Act (PURPA) required utility companies to purchase independently generated power primarily for energy conservation purposes.
