Legal regulation of competition at electricity retail markets

The article considers some features of the competitive relation formation in the electric power industry, a major economy sector. In particular, the paper analyzes the electricity retail market operation and the need for competition promotion, it is associated there with a wide range of consumers, which adds high social significance to the effective operation of relations emerging in this area. The author concludes that the retail electricity market needs to increase private funds and decrease state participation, which will contribute to a wider range of service consumers. The article considers some special aspects on how to ensure the dominant position of power supply companies, as well as defines main barriers for business entities to enter retail electricity markets. It also reviews the best foreign practices that regulate energy retail companies (by the example of the Nordic countries) and offers some options of legal receptions in this area. Moreover, it analyzes the Russian legislation novelties in the field of competition at the electricity markets, in particular, the tariff regulation of electricity distributors by the method of reference costs. Also, the article specifies some proposals on how to improve the legislation that regulates competitive relations at the electric energy market within the National Competition Development Plan. © 2019, LLC Editorial of Journal “Light Technik”. All rights reserved.