This paper relates to significant medium and long-term planning for the Indian power sector. Given the very high losses, both technical as well as theft, and lack of reliable data (stemming from lack of metering for millions of pumpsets, among other reasons), the use of IT offers a significant opportunity for leapfrogging to a "smart" distribution system. Such a system might reduce losses, improve sustainability, and free up electricity for rural consumption - which today is throttled due to lack of supply. However, as the paper indicates, IT is not a silver bullet, and its optimum use requires significant analysis, consensus, and R&D.

When the People's Republic was founded in 1949, the Chinese electricity industry, with only 1.85 GW installed capacity, was primitive. It has since grown into the second largest in the world, with installed capacity rising to 353 GW in 2002. The number of people who have no access to electricity has been reduced to less than 2 percent of a population of 1.26 billion. On a per capita basis, installed capacity has edged up to one half of the world's average. Development has been particularly impressive since the 1980s thanks to increased investment in the sector. According to industry accounts, an estimated RMB 1,107 billion ($US 134 billion) was invested between 1981 and 2001 in new generation and delivery capacity. Additional investment was also made in retrofitting and upgrading the system, reaching over RMB 100 billion ($12 - 15 billion) per annum in the past seven years. Three quarters of this sectoral capital came from domestic sources, with foreign investment making up the rest. This remarkable power sector growth and financing have been achieved through an ongoing, unsystematic process of electricity industry reforms initiated in the mid 1980s. Further system expansion, projected at about 25 GW per year for the next two decades, challenges the Chinese government to continue and deepen this reform process.

This chapter, by PESD fellow Thomas Heller and PESD affiliate P.R. Shukla, was published by the Pew Center on Global Climate Change in 2003 as part of their "Beyond Kyoto" series.

After a long period of rapid growth the Brazilian power industry entered a period of stagnation and crisis in the 1980s. Ever since the 1930s a series of tariff rules and nationalizations had squeezed private investors from the market. In their place, state enterprises had assumed the function of distributing electricity in Brazil's 26 states; Eletrobras, owned by the central government, managed the transmission system and also generated much of the electricity in Brazil. Through its control over state funds for building power plants, Eletrobras pursued vast projects such as the Itaipu hydroelectric plant and assured low electricity prices as part of the government's policy of import substitution. In the shock of the two oil crises and the Latin American debt crisis this system unraveled. Financing costs escalated yet tariffs were kept low; losses mounted.

This is an updated draft of a version published in February 2003.

This chapter aims to explain the motivations and strategies for reform in the Mexican electricity sector. Our focus is on the effects of politically organized interests, such as unions and parties, on the process of reform. We show how particular forms of institutions-notably, the state-owned enterprises (SOEs) within the power sector as well as the state firm that supplies most fuels for electricity generation-shape the possibilities and pace of reform. The tight integration of these SOEs with the political elite, opaque systems for cost accounting, and various schemes for siphoning state resources explain why these institutions have survived and the actual progress of reform has been so slow. Where private investors have been allowed into the market it has been only at the margin through the "independent power producer (IPP)" scheme, an oxymoron since the purchase agreements and dispatch rules that determine payment to these IPPs are dominated by the State.