Does deregulation of power prices result in higher or lower costs?

Submitted by David on Tue, 2012-05-22 15:02

Here a quote from H. Geman that seems worth pondering (cited from p. 131 of Electricity Markets: Pricing, Structures and Economics:

Regarding Europe the consequences of deregulation are puzzling at the present time: the two countries with the lowest cost of producing electricity in April 2004 were:

The most deregulated one, in the UK, with a cost of production of 0.048 euros per kilowatt hour.

The most centralized one, France with a cost of production of 0.052 euros per kilowatt hour.