Market power and electricity market reform in Northeast China

The Northeast region of China has been used as a testing ground for creation of a functioning wholesale electric power market. We describe the ownership structure of the generation assets for those plants participating in the trial operation of the Northeast China Regional Electricity Market and als...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Zhang, Xiaochun, Parsons, John E.
Other Authors: Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Center for Energy and Environmental Policy Research.
Format: Working Paper
Published: MIT Center for Energy and Environmental Policy Research 2009
Online Access:http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/45129
Description
Summary:The Northeast region of China has been used as a testing ground for creation of a functioning wholesale electric power market. We describe the ownership structure of the generation assets for those plants participating in the trial operation of the Northeast China Regional Electricity Market and also for the region as a whole and for each of the provinces making up the region. We calculate the 4-firm Concentration Ratio (CR4) and the Hirschman-Herfindahl Index (HHI). In general, we find that the current ownership structure is relatively concentrated. Arguably, this is a troublesome obstacle to instituting some form of competitive bidding in the wholesale power market, and this may be one factor in the poor outcome of the trial operation.