British consumers have every reason to feel smug this winter as they bask in the warmth of their successfully liberalised energy markets. In the US, the future of electricity deregulation is in doubt as Enron goes down in the history books as the world’s biggest bankruptcy and Californian consumers endure another winter of soaring power prices and looming blackouts.
By contrast, electricity liberalisation in the UK has shown that it is possible to switch from a public to a private, market-oriented system quickly and smoothly, with the lights staying on. The transformation has been hailed a success and serves as a model for EU nations currently undergoing the liberalisation process.
