Reforms in Electricity Markets – What Next?
The electricity industry is undergoing rapid changes in response to policy push as an outcome from climate change concerns and disruption pull from products and solutions such as distributed energy resources and demand response. It is an exciting and challenging time for utilities, technology providers, regulators, policymakers, investors as well as for the consumers. While there are new opportunities to be explored, there is also a great uncertainty regarding authority, ownership, equity, sharing of costs and benefits and other rules, which can cause confusion in the market place.
One such industry whose fate today hangs in legal battles is demand response (DR). It is unclear as to who has the authority to define, regulate and facilitate demand response, what is the value added by demand response in the wholesale and retail electricity markets, and, if and how should this value be monetized and distributed within participants.
