Centre on Asia and Globalisation

This document summarizes a presentation on electricity markets and externalities given in Singapore. It discusses how perfect electricity markets do not actually exist due to issues like externalities and market power. Examples of negative externalities from electricity generation are provided, such as health impacts, environmental damage, and economic impacts. The document then ranks different electricity technologies based on their full social costs when both private costs and externalities are included. The technologies with the lowest costs are found to be renewable options like wind and solar, while coal and natural gas have much higher overall costs once externalities are considered. The implications discussed are that externalities need to be internalized into electricity prices and that subsidies should be removed to allow low-cost clean technologies to compete.