The resurgence of state coordination in the UK’s electricity industry represents an institutional paradigm shift, unfolding without sufficient political reckoning. The UK has progressively unbundled the system operator from the transmission company to develop a “whole system” perspective for planning, coordinate infrastructure development, and to redraw the contours of electricity markets. A public system operator is the culmination of a decade-long process that ends reliance solely on the market with new modes of state coordination. The institutional reforms are not just market adjustments, nor only an increase in regulation. New forms of non-market industrial coordination have resulted from creative institutional learning and organisational speciation. The article reviews the legacy of privatisation and brings to light an expanding ecosystem of non-market, public, and hybrid agencies that now coordinate the electricity industry with aims of decarbonisation. Although, the UK’s electricity industry is the case most clearly associated with neoliberal reforms, this liberalisation first and the reemergence of coordination now are not unique to the country. Thus, this article provides an analytical framework to describe the increased reliance on state coordination and the demise of “market only” electricity governance globally.
In plain sight: The rise of state coordination and fall of liberalised markets in the United Kingdom power sector
Publication details
Net zero & sustainable development
Research paper
Valenzuela, Jose Maria
2022
Latest news

Oxford Net Zero partners with AXA XL on research in India, Mexico and Kenya
Oxford Net Zero is excited to announce that it is working with the insurance company AXA XL, the Institute for Science, Innovation and Society (InSIS), and the Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment to conduct research on private sector ... Read more

Finance, Fossil Fuels and $10 coffee: Reflections on COP29
As we begin a new year, Oxford Net Zero looks back on the highs and lows of November's climate summit in Baku. In some ways, this COP was different. The venue was smaller than in previous years, which meant that attendees could have genuine ... Read more

Oxford Net Zero announces affiliation with Reuben College
Oxford Net Zero is pleased to announce an affiliation with Reuben College. This new strategic partnership will allow us to collaborate more closely on environmental change, which we are both working to address as a core objective. Professor ... Read more
See more news and events