Low-carbon Electricity Market Transition in the UK: A Multi-level Perspective Analysis

As climate change issues arise and become a global concern, to reduce carbon emissions has become an urgent issue to respond to. Therefore, the application of renewable energy plays more and more important roles in the energy domain nowadays, which may also bring significant impacts to the low-carbon electricity market transition. With the advantages of developing renewable energy, the Taiwan government anticipates achieving the goal of reaching 20% renewable energy in electricity structure by 2025. Moreover, Taiwan has carried out the most vigorous amendment on the Electricity Act in history to open the electricity market so that more stakeholders can participate in it to propel energy transition. Since the UK is the lead in this field, it is worth investigating. This paper takes the UK as a case study to analyze its evolution in recent decades after the deregulation of its electricity market from the retail side perspective. It expects to explore how the transition drove actors to empower their roles, or even create new roles and responsibilities, and engage in the low-carbon electricity market transition pathway. This paper expects the UK case as a great reference for Taiwan, which echoes the current scenario in Taiwan with the potential to deliver further insights.