By John Oates, 30 July 1998 06:15
NEWS The electricity regulator, Offer, has called for an end to the traditional electricity pool - the method by which the power companies sell excess production.
The regulator claims it is anti-competitive and closed to outside scrutiny.
Director of Offer, Stephen Littlechild, called for a commodity-type exchange to be set up by April 2000.
Such a move would open up the electricity market to more competition, but would mean an extensive overhaul for utilities systems.
An Offer spokesman said: "We have issued proposals to replace the existing pool with a screen-based trading system. This would allow future and forward trading, which would provide a more transparent and flexible market."
The Association of Electricity Producers (ACP) was less impressed. It released a statement, saying: "We do not know how the system security will be maintained, nor how transparent the new arrangements will be. They will be expensive to implement, costly to run and too little attention has been paid to improving the present system."
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