Résumé en anglais

Worldwide, for the last two decades, energy network industries have undergone major changes in terms of organization and competitiveness. After restructuring reforms in the transportation, telecom and natural gas sectors, deregulatory initiatives have been taken in the electric power industry to eliminate traditional constraints and protectionism. An new era has begun : in some segment of the value chain, electric monopoly activities are now open to competition. There is lively debate about whether these experiments will succeed and how they should be conducted. In several countries, the electric power sector is experiencing a fundamental transformation from a regulated market place to one exposed to the influence of market forces1. The word 'convergence' of natural gas and electricity industries is progressively used at least in North America and currently in Europe. In the United States, the deregulation process and technological changes are inducing the convergence of energy value chains. This phenomenon is obvious with the wave of mergers among electric and gas utilities and it tends to invade Europe. In this paper, we will focus on a specific characteristic of the emerging competitive energy markets : the convergence of electric power and gas utilities. In the first part, we will present the main drivers of the growing link of gas and electricity industries in the United States. Then, in the second part, we will analyze several impacts of the convergence of electric / gas value chains on the new American energy market organization. Finally, we will wonder which lessons of the American experience can be useful for the European market evolution.