The Virtual Utility
Subtitle: Accounting, Technology & Competitive Aspects of the Emerging Industry
By: edited by Shimon Awerbuch, Alistair Preston
Contributors: Preston, Alistair
Series: Topics in Regulatory Economics and Policy Series -- 26; Topics in regulatory economics and policy -- 26.
Publisher: Springer US
Published: 1997
Place of publication: Boston, MA
Language: eng
Format: [electronic resource] :
Number of pages: 409
ISBN-13: 9781461378273; 9781461561675
Subjects: Computer engineering; Economics; Industrial organization (Economic theory); Engineering economy
Description: The virtual utility (VU) is a flexible collaboration of independent, market-driven entities that provide efficient energy service demanded by consumers without necessarily owning the corresponding assets. The VU becomes a metaphor for lean, flexible electricity production/delivery and flexible, customer-oriented energy service provision. Experience in manufacturing suggests that traditional engineering and accounting-based approaches to valuing radical innovations such as the VU are limited in that they fail to consider the full spectrum of benefits that new technologies may yield when fully exploited in a new production process. The purpose of this book is to identify new areas of research by presenting new academic and practitioner research intended to further our understanding of the strategic, technologically-driven issues confronting the electricity production/distribution process.
Notes: Online full text is restricted to subscribers.

Also available in print.

Mode of access: World Wide Web.