Don't know much about (anything, actually)
electricity, but . . .
I doubt the relevance of rivalness/excludability
in this context (putting aside enviro/other
externalities). Seems to me the main things
are natural monopoly, oui or non.
#s 2 and 3 don't lend themselves to overlap--
2 is land-intensive and vulnerable to NIMBY
objections (legitimate ones), and 3 might
be called 'proximity' intensive and NIMBY
vulnerable. By contrast, #1 seems to admit
of multiple, possibly competing entities
(assuming there is always more than enough
supply in such an arrangement).
So for items 2 and 3, the issue is not
fragmentation ("competition") v. monopoly,
but public v. private regulated monopoly.
mbs
In a country-wide electric grid, there are three separate components as PK
briefly discusses:
1. Low voltage electric power generation (power plants must generate
electricity at a low voltage because of insulation problems).
2. High voltage electric power transmission (voltage is increased and the
power is carried over long transmission lines from the plants to distant
distribution suppliers near consumers).
3. High-to-low voltage electric power distribution from high voltage supply
centers to low voltage consumer use (voltage is decreased several times
during distribution).
