Economies of scale and technological change in electricity generation in The Netherlands

An important characteristic attributed to electricity production has been the existence of economies of scale. Economies of scale are said to be partly determined by fuel input, e.g. large electricity generating units have a greater fuel efficiency than small ones. This article shows, using Dutch data, that scale effects in fuel efficiency are only present for units below 200 MW. Fuel efficiency hardly differs for units of a capacity between 200 and 600 MW. An analogous conclusion is drawn on the relation between fuel efficiency and vintage: technological improvements occur until 1967 and are absent thereafter.