Research on information disclosure strategies of electricity retailers under new electricity reform in China

Abstract

The Chinese government has issued “No.9 document” to start a new round of reform. Retail competition mechanism has been launched and more participants are encouraged to involve into the sell side. However, the electricity retail market is still imperfect and needs continuously improving at current stage, in which information disclosure mechanism is of great significance. This paper analyzes and compares the information disclosure strategies of power retailers under new electricity reform in China. The results show that the retail companies with better service quality are more inclined to disclose information, while sellers with poor service quality tend to hide information. Information non-transparency will result in some inefficiencies inevitably and perfect information disclosure system is expected to promote competition, thus ensuring market fairness. These findings may provide some references for the future development of the electricity retail market and electricity reform.