Application of bechmarking to distribution companies 10 billion dollar investment plans

As national governments strive to reduce demands on their expenditure, there is a worldwide trend to move electricity businesses, and other utilities, from state to private ownership. At the same time there is a drive to reduce costs to customers, to enhance quality of service, as well as to seek to fund investment in this essential service area. In this paper, the authors describe the techniques that the used in the review of capital expenditure forecasts submitted by each of the UK electricity distribution companies. The review of operating expenditures was subject to a separate, but parallel, process in which they also provided Ofgem with assistance on technical and operational aspects