Introduction Since the privatisation of the British electricity industry in the early 1990’s the power industry has gone through major structural changes. As with most privatisation of former public companies, (such as the privatisation of British Telecom and British Gas), the government wished to see increased efficiency in the production of electricity. By privatising, the government hoped that the incentive of higher profits would act as a reward for efficiency, meaning that more effort would be made in research and development of new techniques so as to make production more efficient. In order to pass savings onto the consumer, the electr