A merger between the UK’s electricity regulator Offer and the gas regulator Ofgas could be suggested in a forthcoming consultative paper on the industries to be published by the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI).
There has also been speculation that the paper will suggest a possible separation of the generation and distribution businesses of the UK’s electricity companies, but DTI sources have played this down.
Meanwhile Offer plans to change the price control regime covering the Scottish power companies Scottish Power and Scottish Hydro-Electric. The regulator has proposed setting an interim price cap on transmission prices for 12 months between March 1999, and April 2000, Dow Jones reports.
The move would allow new price controls to be set simultaneously for the companies’ transmission and distribution businesses in April 2000. Current transmission price controls run until March 1999 and distribution and supply controls until April 2000.
