Price and access charge discrimination in electricity distribution: an application to the Chilean case

This paper presents and analyzes a model of electricity distribution in Chile with three alternative regulatory pricing contract schemes for assigning a common capacity cost to final customers and competitive energy sellers. The first scheme involves Ramsey Pricing, while under the second and third schemes the monopoly chooses final prices and access charges subject either to a peak-load Physical Cap or a total revenue Price Cap constraint. In addition, we consider circumstances in which the regulator does not know consumer demand, the monopoly cannot price discriminate beyond a range defined by the marginal cost as a floor and the stand-alone cost as a ceiling, and access charges are set at the fully distributed cost allocation level currently in force. The model is calibrated with Chilean data, and demonstrates that in terms of social welfare the fully distributed cost contract scheme currently in effect can be improved by discriminatory pricing complemented by certain of the analyzed constraints. (author)