Electricity industry restructuring in Australia: underlying principles and experience to date

Electricity restructuring is a complex, never-ending process that has engineering, economic, social, commercial, legal and policy dimensions and takes place within a broad societal context. Thus, there are many interdisciplinary challenges for the design, implementation and on-going maintenance of a successful restructuring process. Moreover, it is not possible beforehand to be sure that a particular design will work satisfactorily because the formally designed aspects of a restructured industry are only part of the whole. Therefore, it is most important to approach the design of restructuring in manner that is as robust as possible over both the short and long term. This paper describes the underlying principles used in restructuring the Australian electricity industry and discusses outcomes to date and current challenges