Feasibility of competitive reforms in the electricity industry: an attempt to formalize it from the Thai case.

Summary Originally built around a quasi-universal model, characterized by strong public regulation, long-term planning, vertical integration, territorial monopolization and coordination of the operation of production equipment, the electricity industry has adapted to the evolution of the global theoretical, political, economic and technological context. This adaptation has been uneven across regions and countries, depending on the level of development, the weight of institutional organization and the imperatives of energy policy. Thailand, which has been liberalizing its electricity sector since the mid-1990s, is now looking for a direction for its reform, which is still oscillating between monopoly and competition. The questions of feasibility and opportunity of the reform are at the center of the reflection carried out by the Thai authorities in a context updated by the problems linked to the regional integration of the electricity markets within the Greater Mekong region and the one formed by the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), as well as the imperatives of energy policy.