Financial performance in electricity and gas markets: some empirical evidence from a cluster analysis

The deregulation of the European energy markets from the late 1990s onward, and the privatization of state-owned operators that had previously had monopolistic dominance in the market, had profound effects on stakeholders in the member states of the European Union. One of the most important direct effects was the entry of a number of new operators into the market, which thus increased competition in the generation and supply of gas and electricity, giving consumers a much improved choice of supplier. This study explores the energy markets of Italy and the United Kingdom and provides a comparative analysis of the operating performance of the competing energy companies therein. The innovative contribution of this paper is that we provide cluster trend analysis of the financial position and performance of the Italian and UK energy companies in the period 2008–17. Our main findings are that the overall performance of energy companies in Italy was weak, and that the incumbent successor to the state monopoly company retained a dominant position, while this was not the case in the United Kingdom. This calls into question the liberalization and transformation processes for energy companies and poses questions to the state and regulators.