Research On Anti - Monopoly Law Regulation In Electric Power Industry

According to traditional industrial organization theory, the electric power industry which is the basic industry concerning the national economy and people’s livelihood, is always thought to be the typical natural monopoly industry. Therefore, many countries considered it to be an applicable object of exemption in anti-monopoly law. However, following the development of economic and anti-monopoly law theory, the natural monopoly of the electric power industry is broken. From the four segments of the electric power industry, we should positively introduce competition mechanism in the electricity generation and selling segments, curb monopoly in the transmission segment when keeps the monopoly position, and appropriately introduce competition in the distribution segment with weak natural monopoly to realize orderly competition and benign development of the electric power industry under the regulation of anti-monopoly law.We proposed the direction and goal of marketization reform which broke monopoly and introduced competition as early as 2002. However, during the following ten years, other goals don’t basically break through except the separation of plant and network. The sustainable electric power industry competition mechanism hasn’t built yet. There exists some problems which need to be modified and specified in the terms of electric power industry regulation, the reform of the supervision model and operation of the law enforcement mechanism, etc.The 18 th CPC National Congress and the Third Plenary Session of the 18 th CPC Central Committee proposed clearly the goal of accelerating the marketization reform, and form the market-oriented development system and mechanism of electric power industry. At present, it’s the key period for a new round of electric power industry reform. In this context, this paper conducts theoretical analysis of the monopoly nature and applicable anti-monopoly law of the electric power industry, recites varieties of phenomenon and hazards, and summarizes the successful experience in the regulation of anti-monopoly abroad. Finally, from the aspects of exploding the barrier of administration monopoly, speeding up the interconnection of power system, pushing the marketization reform in the segments of electricity generation and selling, improving the related legal system and coordinating the relationship between the anti-monopoly executive agency and the industry supervision agency, the paper proposes specific suggestions and measures to supply valuable reference for improving anti-monopoly regulation and marketization reform.