The existence of a single market arose from the growth in seaborne coal trade brought on by the combination of firstly, growth in the demand for coking coal in the 1960s and secondly, sharply rising oil prices during the 1970s. Before 1960, international coal trade had been primarily land based, and been between neighbouring countries. […]
Author Archives: GEC
There is some evidence that deregulation does not work as effectively in small markets, because there is not enough volume to justify a large enough number of participants at the various levels. This was foreseen by some of the small countries when the EU Directives were first proposed and Ireland, Malta, Greece, Cyprus and Portugal […]
In Brazil, in 1993, the National Electric Power Transmission System (Sintrel) was created to ensure free access to the national electric interconnected grid to independent producers and self producers on an at cost basis. Sintrel was made up largely of transmission systems owned by the companies controlled by Eletrobas, which was also the entity in […]
Canadian utilities are engaged in the North American transition towards competitive markets and are integrated with the American regional systems. The electricity supply industry in Canada is organised on a regional basis. The various utilities, responsible for electricity generation, transmission and distribution in each area, frequently trade power with each other via some of the […]
From the late 1970s to about 2002 the nuclear power industry did not grow but suffered some decline and stagnation and some orders from the 1970s were cancelled. New reactors were few and the number coming on line from mid 1980s little more than matched retirements, though output increased 60% due to improved load factors. […]
The cost of replacing the power delivery system in the US would be prohibitive. What can be done is to employ advanced technology to modernise and enhance the use of existing assets. The DOE has a vision of the grid in 2030 which builds on the existing electric infrastructure. The same types of equipment that […]
The development of cross-borders lines started earlier than many people think. In Europe it started by 1920, mainly to take advantage of Swiss hydropower. In most of continental Europe, cross-border interconnections took place before the creation national networks. The process of national interconnection slowed down and was restricted to the radial operation of power plants […]
Since 2006 nearly half of new discoveries have been in deep waters. For example, in 2010 oil discoveries were reported off the coast of Angola, Brazil, Ghana, Norway and in the US Gulf of Mexico, to name a few. Very few large reserves have been discovered in the past ten years. New discoveries of conventional […]
The reasons for the wide variations in penetration for electricity, water and gas meters are different, partly demographic and partly market based. 85% of households have an electricity supply and almost all of these end points are metered. Of the 15% of households which do not have electricity, two thirds or nearly a quarter of […]
The solar thermal industry has used low-tech technology until relatively recently and been largely concerned with small domestic and building applications for heating space or water, or cooking. However, the industry is now taking a more sophisticated direction and progressing to higher-tech applications involving relatively large electricity generation projects in a number of countries. Some […]
