Third-party access
Encyclopedia
Third party access policies require owners of natural monopoly
infrastructure facilities to grant access to those facilities to parties other than their own customers, usually competitors in the provision of the relevant services, on commercial terms comparable to those that would apply in a competitive market
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Third party access policies play an important role in Australia's National Competition Policy
, and are applied to "essential infrastructure which cannot be economically duplicated", including electricity transmission and distribution grids, rail tracks and ports.
The third-party access right (‘TPA’) in the energy market context is the idea that in certain circumstances economically independent undertakings operating in the energy sector should have a legally enforceable right to access and use various energy network facilities owned by other companies.
The Internal Energy Market Directives envisage the third-party access right as a crucial element of organisation of access to the energy infrastructure system in Europe and as the main instrument for opening the Internal Energy Market to competition.
Natural monopoly
A monopoly describes a situation where all sales in a market are undertaken by a single firm. A natural monopoly by contrast is a condition on the cost-technology of an industry whereby it is most efficient for production to be concentrated in a single form...
infrastructure facilities to grant access to those facilities to parties other than their own customers, usually competitors in the provision of the relevant services, on commercial terms comparable to those that would apply in a competitive market
Perfect competition
In economic theory, perfect competition describes markets such that no participants are large enough to have the market power to set the price of a homogeneous product. Because the conditions for perfect competition are strict, there are few if any perfectly competitive markets...
.
Third party access policies play an important role in Australia's National Competition Policy
National Competition Policy
The term National Competition Policy refers to a set of policies introduced in Australia in the 1990s with the aim of promoting microeconomic reform.-Origins:...
, and are applied to "essential infrastructure which cannot be economically duplicated", including electricity transmission and distribution grids, rail tracks and ports.
The third-party access right (‘TPA’) in the energy market context is the idea that in certain circumstances economically independent undertakings operating in the energy sector should have a legally enforceable right to access and use various energy network facilities owned by other companies.
The Internal Energy Market Directives envisage the third-party access right as a crucial element of organisation of access to the energy infrastructure system in Europe and as the main instrument for opening the Internal Energy Market to competition.