Abstract
At the very beginning, the electricity industry was a fragmented sector. Later on, the increasing economies of scale and the view of electricity as a public service made governments consider the sector as a natural monopoly, either public or privately owned. Later, many countries decided on power sector reforms designed to put the electricity industry in competition. Different competitive market models have been developed and nowadays many countries have an experienced electricity market. This paper deals with the transition towards different models of competitive electricity markets. Moreover, the results of the most relevant and experienced wholesale competitive electricity markets are analysed and compared.
