Pricing and Related Policies of Publicly Owned Electrical Utilities

Stephen J. Kees was Chief Librarian, Niagara College of Applied Arts and Technology, Welland, Ontario.

In many parts of the world the electric utility is regarded as a convenient whipping boy, and certainly in the two countries considered in this book — Canada and Great Britain.

Following a discussion of the conflict between the social and commercial responsibilities of the utilities in the two countries, two chapters explore the financial situations for them in their respective regimes.

In the second part of the work the author addresses the issue of electricity pricing from the viewpoint of an economist. He is a believer in marginal cost pricing and proceeds to demonstrate how it should work. That in fact the theory can only be partially applied is explained in full detail. The treatment is in theoretical economic style, and some of the concepts may be difficult to understand for anyone not versed in them. There is very complete annotation of the points considered, which helps to make this work more generally understandable and valuable.

Since it is human nature to complain about costs over which we have little or no control, this work may help to make the viewpoint of the utilities more understandable.