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tized in 1990, as the result there are many stakeholders, suppliers, network companies which all regulated by the Ofgem. There are five major companies which dominate 73 percent of the total UK market. The National Grid Co Plc is the main transmission network owner in England and Wales and was also used to control the Electricity Pool which is used by generators and supplies to trade electricity. The Electricity Pool was heavily regulated by generating companies as well as the other members of the board; it was mainly established in order to prohibit the major generators of exploiting their opportunities within the market power to maintain the wholesale prices up. In March 2001, the Energy Pool was replaced by the New Electricity Trading Arrangements (NETA), which resulted in changes of the means in electricity trading. The NETA was created primarily to increase efficiency and to open up more opportunities for consumers, traders and suppliers (Dukes, 2007, p.122). The main stream of electricity supply in the UK is provided by the 12 regional electricity companies and the two Scottish companies, the rest 26 companies hold the special licenses to provide electricity and usually regarded as ‘second tier suppliers'. The domestic consumers of electricity in the UK have been given the right to choose their supplier since 1999. As mentioned above, the distribution network in the UK is owned and operated by the national electricity suppliers. As a result, they are required to control the competition development on the market and must differentiate distribution network from the supply sector. This particular factor would be the reason for the origination of the ‘second tier suppliers', as the original national electricity suppliers would prefer to sell their supply business and retain their full concentration on their distribution sector. At the end of 2006, there were 30 main power producers in the UK (Dukes, 1997, p. 111).

4.3.2Issues concerning the UK electricity industry

The above section demonstrated the ways the UK electricity industry operates, and outlined the key players and regulators of the market. However, there are several challenges which face the electricity market in the UK. The next section will address the issues which affect the electricity generation in the UK; an issue which was also included in the analysis in order to determine the path for future development of electricity generation. At present, there are two key challenges which affect the industry; renewal (most of the Grid infrastructure was built in 1950-60's, and would reach its end cycle by the year 2030); the second issue is reconfiguration (current network needs to adapt to low-carbon generation). The main drivers influencing the change include:

The high gas prices have increased the domestic electricity bills by 45 percent since 2003;

Under the new EU Emissions Trading the companies have been given an opportunity to benefit financially from the CO2 emissions reduction;

The government's targets for emissions reduction, in particular 10 percent of electricity has to be generated from renewable energy sources by the year 2010; and 60 percent in CO2 emissions reduction by the year 2050. (Electricity in the UK,本论文由英语论文网提供整理，提供论文代写，英语论文代写，代写论文，代写英语论文，代写留学生论文，代写英文论文，留学生论文代写相关核心关键词搜索。