IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/enejou/v37y2016i2p1-27.html

The Impact of Electricity Sector Restructuring on Coal-fired Power Plants in India

Author

Listed:
  • Kabir Malik
  • Maureen Cropper
  • Alexander Limonov
  • Anoop Singh

Abstract

We examine whether the unbundling of generation from transmission and distribution services at state-owned power plants in India improved operating efficiency at these power plants. Between 1995 and 2009, 85 percent of coal-based generation capacity owned by state governments was unbundled from vertically integrated State Electricity Boards into state generating companies. We find that generating units in states that unbundled before the Electricity Act of 2003 experienced reductions in forced outages of about 25% and improvements in availability of about 10%, with the largest results occurring 3-5 years after unbundling.

Suggested Citation

  • Kabir Malik & Maureen Cropper & Alexander Limonov & Anoop Singh, 2016. "The Impact of Electricity Sector Restructuring on Coal-fired Power Plants in India," The Energy Journal, , vol. 37(2), pages 1-27, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:enejou:v:37:y:2016:i:2:p:1-27
    DOI: 10.5547/01956574.37.2.kmal
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.5547/01956574.37.2.kmal
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.5547/01956574.37.2.kmal?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. repec:aen:journl:33-1-a04 is not listed on IDEAS
    2. Joga Singh, 1991. "Plant size and Technical Efficiency in the Indian Thermal Power Industry," Indian Economic Review, Department of Economics, Delhi School of Economics, vol. 26(2), pages 239-252, July.
    3. Plane, Patrick, 1999. "Privatization, Technical Efficiency and Welfare Consequences: The Case of the Cote d'Ivoire Electricity Company (CIE)," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 27(2), pages 343-360, February.
    4. K.R. Shanmugam & Praveen Kulshreshtha, 2005. "Efficiency analysis of coal-based thermal power generation in India during post-reform era," International Journal of Global Energy Issues, Inderscience Enterprises Ltd, vol. 23(1), pages 15-28.
    5. Christopher R. Knittel, 2002. "Alternative Regulatory Methods And Firm Efficiency: Stochastic Frontier Evidence From The U.S. Electricity Industry," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 84(3), pages 530-540, August.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Kabir Malik & Maureen Cropper & Alexander Limonov & Anoop Singh, 2015. "The Impact of Electricity Sector Restructuring on Coal-fired Power Plants in India," The Energy Journal, , vol. 36(4), pages 287-312, October.
    2. repec:aen:journl:ej36-4-malik is not listed on IDEAS
    3. Ghosh, Ranjan & Kathuria, Vinish, 2016. "The effect of regulatory governance on efficiency of thermal power generation in India: A stochastic frontier analysis," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 89(C), pages 11-24.
    4. Kabir Malik & Maureen Cropper & Alexander Limonov & Anoop Singh, 2011. "Estimating the Impact of Restructuring on Electricity Generation Efficiency: The Case of the Indian Thermal Power Sector," NBER Working Papers 17383, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    5. Sugathan, Anish & Malghan, Deepak & Chandrashekar, S. & Sinha, Deepak K., 2019. "Downstream electric utility restructuring and upstream generation efficiency: Productivity dynamics of Indian coal and gas based electricity generators," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 178(C), pages 832-852.
    6. Sahba Fatima, 2016. "Performance Evaluation of Thermal Power Generation: Non-Parametric Frontier Approach," Bulletin of Energy Economics (BEE), The Economics and Social Development Organization (TESDO), vol. 4(1), pages 81-92, March.
    7. Surender Kumar & Rakesh Kumar Jain, 2021. "Cost of CO2 emission mitigation and its decomposition: evidence from coal-fired thermal power sector in India," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 61(2), pages 693-717, August.
    8. Sahoo, Nihar R. & Mohapatra, Pratap K.J. & Mahanty, Biswajit, 2018. "Examining the process of normalising the energy-efficiency targets for coal-based thermal power sector in India," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 81(P1), pages 342-352.
    9. Margarita Genius & Spiro Stefanou & Vangelis Tzouvelekas, 2009. "Productivity Growth and Efficiency under Leontief Technology: An Application to US Steam-Electric Power Generation Utilities," Working Papers 0913, University of Crete, Department of Economics.
    10. Löschel, Andreas & Lutz, Benjamin Johannes & Managi, Shunsuke, 2019. "The impacts of the EU ETS on efficiency and economic performance – An empirical analyses for German manufacturing firms," Resource and Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 56(C), pages 71-95.
    11. Jose Miguel Abito & Jin Soo Han & Jean‐François Houde & Arthur A. van Benthem, 2024. "Agency Frictions and Procurement: New Evidence from U.S. Electricity Restructuring," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 72(1), pages 20-48, March.
    12. Fumitoshi Mizutani & Eri Nakamura, 2017. "How do governance factors affect inefficiency? Stochastic frontier analysis of public utility firms in Japan," Economia e Politica Industriale: Journal of Industrial and Business Economics, Springer;Associazione Amici di Economia e Politica Industriale, vol. 44(3), pages 267-289, September.
    13. Genius, Margarita & Stefanou, Spiro E. & Tzouvelekas, Vangelis, 2012. "Measuring productivity growth under factor non-substitution: An application to US steam-electric power generation utilities," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 220(3), pages 844-852.
    14. Brucal, Arlan & Tarui, Nori, 2021. "The effects of utility revenue decoupling on electricity prices," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 101(C).
    15. Fowlie, Meredith, 2005. "Emissions Trading, Electricity Industry Restructuring and Investment in Pollution Abatement," 2005 Annual meeting, July 24-27, Providence, RI 19265, American Agricultural Economics Association (New Name 2008: Agricultural and Applied Economics Association).
    16. A. Nifo & G. Vecchione, 2015. "Measuring Institutional Quality in Italy," Rivista economica del Mezzogiorno, Società editrice il Mulino, issue 1-2, pages 157-182.
    17. Gaurav, Gajendra Kumar & Chauhan, Shivendra Singh & Khanam, Shabina & Zhang, Fuchun & Liu, Xinghui, 2025. "Efficient enhancement in thermal power plant using wastewater and flue gas streams," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 319(C).
    18. Kirkpatrick, Colin & Parker, David, 2004. "Regulation and the Privatisation of Water Services in Developing Countries: Assessing the Impact of the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS)," Centre on Regulation and Competition (CRC) Working papers 30600, University of Manchester, Institute for Development Policy and Management (IDPM).
    19. Jamasb, T. & Mota, R. & Newbery, D. & Pollitt, M., 2004. "‘Electricity Sector Reform in Developing Countries: A Survey of Empirical Evidence on Determinants and Performance’," Cambridge Working Papers in Economics 0439, Faculty of Economics, University of Cambridge.
    20. repec:osf:socarx:bwxfz_v1 is not listed on IDEAS
    21. Adwoa Asantewaa & Tooraj Jamasb & Manuel Llorca, 2022. "Electricity Sector Reform Performance in Sub-Saharan Africa: A Parametric Distance Function Approach," Energies, MDPI, vol. 15(6), pages 1-29, March.
    22. Tooraj Jamasb & Rabindra Nepal & Govinda Timilsina & Michael Toman, 2014. "Energy Sector Reform, Economic Efficiency and Poverty Reduction," Discussion Papers Series 529, School of Economics, University of Queensland, Australia.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:enejou:v:37:y:2016:i:2:p:1-27. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.