Michael Gerald Pollitt

Michael Gerald Pollitt
University of Cambridge | Cam · Cambridge Judge Business School

PhD

About

352
Publications
112,178
Reads
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11,369
Citations
Additional affiliations
January 2003 - June 2003
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Position
  • Visiting Associate Professor
October 1999 - present
University of Cambridge
Position
  • Professor of Business Economics

Publications

Publications (352)
Article
The paper uses a social cost benefit analysis (SCBA) approach to measure the effects of the power system reform starting from 2015 in Jiangsu province, China. We review the background of Jiangsu power system and summarize the implemented policies since the publication of “Document #9.” Then we pick the average industrial and commercial retail price...
Article
Full-text available
In this paper we explore further how energy network regulation might better be adapted to the uncertainty challenges that are raised by net zero climate policy. We do this with specific reference to energy regulation in the UK. We discuss the drivers of change and the nature of the uncertainty that is faced by energy regulators. Next, we examine th...
Article
Full-text available
Competition usually increases firm productivity; but in network industries, effective competition requires vertical separation, which might reduce productivity and lead to a potential trade-off. We analyze the combined effect of competition and vertical separation on inefficient costs for US electricity industry restructuring. We estimate firm-leve...
Article
This paper seeks to shed light on the nature of optimal regulation of the electricity distribution system operator (DSO) over the period to 2025 and beyond, following the implementation of the EU Clean Energy Package and its constituent parts: Electricity Regulation (EU) 2019/943 and Electricity Directive (EU) 2019/944. We conducted two parallel su...
Article
We analyse the productivity growth of electricity transmission and distribution networks in Great Britain and how changes in incentive mechanism have influenced the measured total factor productivity. In doing so we are also concerned to examine the effects of quality of service and environmental targets on measured productivity growth. It is incre...
Article
This paper quantifies the benefits of introducing reactive power markets that promote the participation of distributed energy resources (DER) in a coordinated way, between the electricity system operator and the electricity distribution utilities. The contribution that DER could make by displacing conventional network assets in supplying reactive p...
Article
The UK left the European single market in energy on 31 December 2020, having been a leading light in its promotion. It entered into a new energy relationship with the EU-27 as outlined in the EU–UK Trade and Cooperation Agreement (TCA) on 1 January 2021. This paper discusses what has happened to the UK energy sector since the Brexit referendum of J...
Article
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The rise of intermittent renewable energy generation, the coming mass penetration of electric vehicles and moves to decarbonise the gas grid are leading to widespread innovation experiments within electricity systems and their associated markets[...]
Article
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The aim of this paper is to analyse and evaluate the deployment of smart platforms (operated by distribution system operators—DSOs—or by independent parties) in key jurisdictions that facilitate the trading of flexibility services—primarily by DSOs. We look at key innovation projects/initiatives from seven jurisdictions, including Australia, France...
Article
Full-text available
This paper identifies and explores regulatory issues that may have an impact on the use of flexibility services by distribution utilities to solve grid constraints. This can be done by flexible distributed energy resources which can be instructed, for instance, to reduce export generating capacity or increasing consumption. We want to identify how...
Article
This paper draws on international experience to examine how the ongoing power sector reform (PSR) in China since 2015 should be measured and assessed. We proceed by reviewing some relevant international reform experience and then applying this to the Chinese context. Thus we focus on some of the extensive previous literature which has documented re...
Article
For over three decades, air pollution has been a major environmental challenge in many of the fast-growing cities of the world, including Beijing, China. Given that any long-term exposure to high levels of air pollution has devastating health consequences, accurately monitoring and reporting air pollution information to the public is critical for e...
Article
Ancillary services are electricity products which include balancing energy, frequency regulation, voltage support, constraint management and reserves. Traditionally they have been procured by system operators from large conventional power plants, as by-products of the production of energy. This paper discusses the use of markets to procure ancillar...
Article
Full-text available
Ancillary services are electricity products which include balancing energy, frequency regulation, voltage support, constraint management and reserves. Traditionally they have been procured by system operators from large conventional power plants, as by-products of the production of energy. This paper discusses the use of markets to procure ancillar...
Article
This paper reviews the international experience in the competitive procurement of reactive power and other electricity ancillary services. It involves system operators from different jurisdictions including Australia, the United States and Great Britain. The paper evaluates the different procurement mechanisms, related compensation schemes and look...
Article
What accounts for the recent widespread slowdown in the productivity in advanced economies has remained a puzzle. One plausible explanation has been attributable to regulation, particularly anti-competitive regulations and environmental regulations. This paper focuses on the regulated energy network sectors by undertaking three sets of analysis in...
Chapter
This final chapter seeks to summarise some of the key issues emerging from the previous chapters on the prospects for the reform of the Chinese electric power sector. In Sect. 5.1 we begin with some of the high-level messages from the previous four chapters. In Sect. 5.2 we comment on recent developments with the provincial power reform pilots acro...
Chapter
Guangdong is the largest and the most economically successful province in China. In 2017 Guangdong contributed more than 27.1% of Chinese exports, 10.9% of GDP, 8.1% of the population (c.112 m) and 9.5% of electricity consumption in China. Guangdong has relatively high final electricity prices in China (for residential and most industrial and comme...
Chapter
This chapter aims to unpack how the price of industrial electricity is determined within the liberalised power market in Great Britain in the context of the ongoing reform of the Chinese power sector, initiated by the March 2015 No. 9 document.
Chapter
Looking across the world at electricity reform we can identify 14 reform elements that form part of a modern power market reform. We take 11 of these from Paul Joskow (2008) who identifies 11 key components of successful processes and supplement these with 3 additional reform elements appropriate to a low carbon transition (based on Pollitt and Ana...
Chapter
This chapter introduces the Chinese power system and the background to the reform process which began in March 2015 with the publication of the No. 9 document of the China State Council on ‘Deepening Reform of the Power Sector’. Inter alia, this set of reforms seeks to introduce wholesale power markets to trade electricity under longer- and medium-...
Book
The Chinese electricity sector is the largest in the world, covering well over 20% of the world's electricity supply. While many other countries liberalized their electricity systems in the 1990s, thereby creating competitive wholesale and retail electricity markets, China’s move towards liberalization has advanced at a slower pace – until now. F...
Article
Full-text available
The aim of this paper is to evaluate different well-established non-electric storage markets (cloud data, frozen food and natural gas) in order to identify relevant lessons for electrical energy storage (EES) connected to electricity distribution networks. The case studies that have been evaluated are Google Drive (cloud storage), Oakland Internati...
Article
Full-text available
The European single market in electricity has been promoted vigorously by the European Commission since 1996. We discuss how national electricity markets and cross-border electricity markets have been reshaped by the process. We examine the Commission’s own work on evaluating the benefits of the single market. We look at the wider evidence of impac...
Article
In virtually all jurisdictions that explicitly price carbon, its average (emissions-weighted) price remains low. Our analysis focuses on the political economy of its introduction as well as its stringency in an international panel of national and North American subnational jurisdictions. Results suggest that political economy factors primarily affe...
Article
Full-text available
The article “A global carbon market?” written by Michael G. POLLITT, was originally published electronically on the publisher’s internet portal (currently SpringerLink) on 27 February 2019 without open access. The copyright of the article changed on 15 July 2019 to © The Author(s) 2019 and the article is forthwith distributed under the terms of the...
Article
Does privatization increase plant productivity because the private owner's objective is different, or because they are better able to control management? And, is privatization sufficient to improve productivity, or is it only effective in combination with competition? We answer these questions using the quasi-experiment of Great Britain's electrici...
Article
China's electric power industry has experienced a reform whereby the generation sector is being opened up to competition but the transmission and distribution sectors are still under regulation. Efficiency and benchmarking analyses are widely used for improving the performance of regulated segments. The impact of observable environmental factors, t...
Technical Report
Full-text available
This paper reviews digitalisation in energy sector by looking at the business models of 40 interesting new start-up energy companies from around the world. These start-ups have been facilitated by the rise of distributed generation, much of it intermittent in nature. We review Artificial Intelligence (AI), Machine Learning, Deep Learning and Blockc...
Article
Cambridge Core - Environmental Policy, Economics and Law - In Search of Good Energy Policy - edited by Marc Ozawa
Technical Report
Full-text available
This paper reviews digitalisation in energy sector by looking at the business models of 40 interesting new start-up energy companies from around the world. These start-ups have been facilitated by the rise of distributed generation, much of it intermittent in nature. We review Artificial Intelligence (AI), Machine Learning, Deep Learning and Blockc...
Article
Full-text available
This paper explores the prospects for a global carbon market as the centerpiece of any serious attempt to reach the ambitious goal for greenhouse gas (GHG) reductions set by climate scientists. My aim is to clarify the extent to which we know what policy might best support global decarbonisation. We begin by discussing what we might mean by a globa...
Research
Full-text available
In light of the increasing importance of distributed energy resources (DERs) in the electricity system, there is an ongoing need to understand the current status of electric power distribution across the world. This review paper compiles key information about the distribution systems in 175 countries worldwide. The findings for each country include...
Technical Report
Full-text available
In light of the increasing importance of distributed energy resources (DERs) in the electricity system, there is an ongoing need to understand the current status of electric power distribution across the world. This review paper compiles key information about the distribution systems in 175 countries worldwide. The findings for each country include...
Article
Full-text available
This paper presents a set of policy recommendations for the market design of a future European electricity system characterized by a dominant share of renewable energy supply (RES), in line with the stated targets of European governments. We discuss the market failures that need to be addressed to accommodate RES in liberalized electricity markets,...
Preprint
Full-text available
The goal of this research is to trigger the discussion on how to share the system balancing responsibility entirely belonging to the transmission system operator (TSO) to several local distribution system operators (DSOs) by fairly allocating system balancing cost based on the cost-causality principle. By charging balancing payments to DSOs, they w...
Article
This paper presents a set of policy recommendations for the market design of a future European electricity system characterized by a dominant share of intermittent renewable energy supply (RES), in line with the stated targets of European governments. We discuss the market failures that need to be addressed to accommodate RES in liberalized electri...
Article
This paper analyses the heterogeneity of household consumer preferences for electricity service contracts in a smart grid context. Platform pricing strategies that could incentivise consumers to participate in a two-sided electricity platform market are discussed. The research is based on original data from a discrete choice experiment on electrici...
Article
This paper analyses the heterogeneity of household consumer preferences for electricity service contracts in a smart grid context. Platform pricing strategies that could incentivise consumers to participate in a two-sided electricity platform market are discussed. The research is based on original data from a discrete choice experiment on electrici...
Article
Full-text available
This paper discusses the principles of electricity network charging in the light of increasing amounts of distributed generation and the potential for significant increases in electric vehicles or distributed electrical energy storage. We outline cost reflective pricing, traditional public service pricing, platform market pricing and customer- focu...
Article
Full-text available
This study explores and quantifies the social costs and benefits of grid-scale electrical energy storage (EES) projects in Great Britain. The case study for this paper is the Smarter Network Storage project, a 6 MW/10 MWh lithium battery placed at the Leighton Buzzard Primary substation to meet growing local peak demand requirements. This study ana...
Article
This study explores and quantifies the social costs and benefits of grid-scale electrical energy storage (EES) projects in Great Britain. The case study for this paper is the Smarter Network Storage project, a 6 MW/10MWh lithium battery placed at the Leighton Buzzard Primary substation to meet growing local peak demand requirements. This study anal...
Article
This paper discusses the principles of electricity network charging in the light of increasing amounts of distributed generation and the potential for significant increases in electric vehicles or distributed electrical energy storage. We outline cost reflective pricing, traditional public service pricing, platform market pricing and customer- focu...
Article
This paper analyses the influence of weather variables on the efficiency of electricity distribution companies in Argentina, Brazil, Chile and Peru, covering 82 firms which represent more than 90 per cent of the distribution market of energy delivered for the period 1998-2008. Stochastic frontier analysis (SFA) is applied using a translog input dis...
Article
Full-text available
How can the electricity system operator determine the optimal quantity and quality of electricity ancillary services (such as frequency response) to procure in a market increasingly characterized by intermittent renewable electricity generation? The paper presents a system operator's utility function to calculate the exchange rates in monetary valu...
Presentation
Full-text available
This paper analyses the influence of weather variables on the efficiency of electricity distribution companies in Argentina, Brazil, Chile and Peru, covering 82 firms which represent more than 90 per cent of the distribution market of energy delivered for the period 1998-2008. Stochastic frontier analysis (SFA) is applied using a translog input dis...
Article
This study explores and quantifies the benefits of connecting more distributed generation (DG) with and without the use of smart connections in Great Britain. We examine the impacts on different parties (Distribution Network Operators, wider society and generators). As illustration we use a specific case study. Alternative connection scenarios are...
Article
This study focuses on how energy and communications have evolved over the last 50 years and what we can learn from history in order to examine the prospects for smart energy pricing by 2050. We begin by discussing the nature of energy and telecoms products and why price discrimination should be expected. We then review various business and pricing...
Article
Full-text available
This study focuses on how energy and communications have evolved over the last 50 years and what we can learn from history in order to examine the prospects for smart energy pricing by 2050. We begin by discussing the nature of energy and telecoms products and why price discrimination should be expected. We then review various business and pricing...
Article
In this paper we raise a number of issues that are important for the UK to consider in the light of its decision to leave the European Union (EU). The first of these is the nature of the EU Single Market in Electricity and Gas and the UK’s role within this. The second is the nature of UK energy policy in the light of Brexit, and the opportunities f...
Article
In this paper we raise a number of issues that are important for the UK to consider in the light of its decision to leave the European Union (EU). The first of these is the nature of the EU Single Market in Electricity and Gas and the UK's role within this. The second is the nature of UK energy policy in the light of Brexit, and the opportunities f...
Chapter
David Newbery is one of the very best microeconomists that Cambridge has produced in recent decades. David has made many contributions to economics over the years, in development economics, public economics, industrial organisation, economic regulation, transport, and energy economics. We discuss his work in three general parts. The first focuses o...
Article
This study explores and quantifies the benefits of connecting more distributed generation (DG) with and without the use of smart connections in Great Britain. We examine the impacts on different parties (Distribution Network Operators, wider society and generators). As illustration we use a specific case study. Alternative connection scenarios are...
Chapter
This chapter discusses a set of possible business models that traditional utilities or new entrants can deploy in order to succeed in the changing energy market. The business models are derived from emerging market models that, in turn, are influenced and shaped by the megatrends driving change. The chapter highlights relevant examples, and the cap...
Article
Multiple market drivers suggest that electrical energy storage (EES) systems are going to be essential for future power systems within the next decade. However, the deployment of the technology is proceeding at very different rates around the world. Whereas the sector is progressing quickly in California, it is not gaining much traction, so far, in...
Article
Full-text available
This paper looks at the empirical and theoretical background to high shares of renewables in the electricity system. First we examine what is meant by ‘high shares’ of renewables; next we consider what we mean by electricity ‘markets’; then we discuss what the term ‘cope with’ implies; before returning to the suitability of ‘current’ electricity ma...
Chapter
A structural shift from transaction-based, marginal cost pricing to fee-based service business models often accompanies the emergence of “platform” markets, that is, multisided markets where an intermediary captures the value of the interaction between user groups. The many examples include telecommunications, data storage, cinema, music and media,...
Chapter
This chapter aims to discuss the main socio-economic issues raised by smart grid developments, drawing on the subsequent chapters in this section. These start with cyber-security and privacy concerns. The economic benefits of smart grids are examined, focussing on business-to-business transactions within the electricity system, the system benefits...
Article
Full-text available
Competition increases firms’ performance. But in many industries, especially network based industries, effective competition requires the separation of firms. Separation can lead to a trade-off between technical efficiency gains from competition and losses from separation. But separation itself can be beneficial, too. We estimate the combined effec...
Article
Multiple market drivers suggest that electrical energy storage (EES) systems are going to be essential for future power systems within the next decade. However, the deployment of the technology is proceeding at very different rates around the world. Whereas the sector is progressing quickly in California, it is not gaining much traction, so far, in...
Article
The electricity industry in most developed countries has been restructured over recent decades with the aim of improving both service quality and firms’ performance. Regulated segments (e.g. transmission) still provide the infrastructure for the competitive segments and represent a notable amount of the total price paid by final customers. However...
Chapter
The complexities of financing, installing, implementing, and regulating public infrastructures, including empirical research, analytical models, and theoretical insights. Infrastructures—tangible, intangible, and institutional public facilities, from bridges to health care—are a vital precondition for economic and societal wellbeing. There has been...
Article
This study examines the outage loss differential between firms that engage in backup generation and those that do not. Unmitigated outage losses were estimated to be US$2.01-23.92 per kWh for firms engaging in self-generation, and range from US$1.54 to 32.46 per kWh for firms without self-generation. We also find that firms engaging in self-generat...
Chapter
I am delighted to have been asked to write a chapter in this volume.1 I write as a neo-classical microeconomist with in interests in behavioral economics (i.e., how consumers actually respond to economic information) and new institutional economics (i.e., how institutional structures actually work within the economy). Most of my published work is o...
Article
This paper focuses on how to promote electricity regional cooperation. We begin by discussing the theory of international trade cooperation in electricity, with a view to discussing what preconditions might be important in facilitating wide area trading across national borders. We then develop lessons based on the comparison of four case studies....

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