Electricity Restructuring: Improving Policy Coherence

This, the sixth and final briefing in Signal49 Research’s electricity restructuring series, focuses on the importance of improving policy coherence to benefit the Canadian electricity sector, its many stakeholders, and the public.

Document Highlights

This briefing focuses on the importance of coherent policy for the electricity sector. The development of effective policy is complicated by the international nature of the North American electricity market, and particularly by the differing—and compelling—priorities of many of the stakeholders. Market regulators, for example, wish to provide reliable low-cost power, while environmental regulators aim to reduce the harmful impact from power generation and use. Elected officials have a clear interest in setting the ground rules to ensure that those who elect them obtain reliable electric power, delivered at the lowest sustainable prices and with the least environmental impact. Electricity Restructuring: Improving Policy Coherence provides examples of where lack of policy coherence adversely affects or discourages electricity sector investment, offers examples of creative institutional mechanisms and integrative approaches for resolving many of these conflicts, and proposes a potential “Made in Canada” approach to help ensure coherent policy for the Canadian electricity sector.