九電力体制の五十年

Abstract

On May 1, 2001, nine electric power companies, Hokkaido, Tohoku, Tokyo, Chubu, Hokuriku, Kansai, Chugoku, Shikoku, and Kyushu Electric Power, which were established simultaneously by the reorganization of the electric power industry in 1951, celebrated their fiftieth anniversaries. The purposes of this paper are to evaluate the fifty-year history of the Nine Electric Power Companies System (NEPCS) and to detect its future.NEPCS is characterized by four factors: (1) private management, (2) vertical integration, (3) regional division (nine blocks), and (4) monopoly. It is possible to regard that factors (1), (2), and (3) hold in check the potential disadvantage of factor (4), i.e., high power rates owing to lack of competition, as autonomy of NEPCS.The fifty-year history of NEPCS is divided into three periods by two epoch-making incidents, the first Oil Crisis of 1973-74 and the overall revision of the Electric Power Industry Law (EPIL) of 1995. During the first period (1951-73), the autonomy of NEPCS worked well and an electricity supply at low rates was realized. In the second period (1974-94), however, the autonomy of NEPCS suffered as the disadvantages of monopoly became apparent. And, it is the most important task of the third period (1995-) for the nine electric power companies to reestablish NEPCS's autonomy.The revision of EPIL in 1995 was the starting point of liberalization of the electric power industry in Japan. If the behavior of the electric power companies is too conservative, NEPCS could experience sudden death as a result of unbundling by the liberalization. But, if the companies cope well with the liberalization, two key factors of NEPCS, private management and vertical integration, can survive in the future.