The impact of electricity market reform on consumers

We examine the effect of electricity market reform on residential consumers, using hypothetical scenarios likely to be prompted by reform. These include raising tariffs to cost reflective levels and introducing a standing charge to recover 10% of the revenue to mirror cost reflective structures. For Albania and Bulgaria, where household expenditure surveys and electricity tariffs are available, we analyse the effects by expenditure decile and region. The impact of reforms varies considerably, depending on how far current tariffs reflect the long run marginal costs of supply, but likely reform scenarios will adversely affect low income households more than others.