The emergence of new energy technologies - economic and public policy implications of Australia's changing electricity markets

Abstract

This thesis examines public policy and economic implications of changing technologies in two key aspects of Australia's electricity system. Part 1 explores issues related to the retail supply of electricity in the context of technology evolution in metering, distributed generation, battery storage and in-home energy management systems. Part 2 of this thesis explores the regulatory and public policy implications of changing technologies through the prism of wholesale electricity markets, renewable energy and climate change. This introductory chapter provides some background on the Australian electricity market and attempts to place key propositions of the chapters (journal articles and published book chapters) in context. The Australian electricity sector has undergone profound change over the past two decades. In the period between 1995 and 2005, it could be argued that much of the change was driven by microeconomic public policy reform introducing market competition for electricity generation and energy retailing. The Hilmer Reforms were promoted by governments and the electricity industry itself as having delivered significant savings for consumers through improvements in allocative efficiency (see Parer, 2002 and Abbott, 2002). Not all economists agreed that the reforms had produced real and lasting benefits, however, with Quiggin (1997), Quiggin (2001), Beder (2003), Chester (2006), Beder (2012) and Quiggin (2014) notable examples of dissenting viewpoints.