Market Power Assessment of Iran's Wholesale Electricity Market

A competitive market is the ideal version of every market. Hence, Iran's electricity market was restructured in order to move towards a competitive market. Therefore, in this paper we have addressed market power problem in the market since exertion of market power is a hurdle that should be overcome for achieving competition in the market. To do so, we have used the most common structural indices, market share, HHI and RSI, thereby evaluating potential for market power exertion in the market in peak hours of 2006 and 2012. Having used the structural indices, we have found that the market has given more incentives to some firms to have non-competitive behavior during the first seven years of its performance. However, speeding up the process of privatization could improve competition in the market.