if they have liberalised their electricity markets these countries will most often be at the stage of the single buyer model because this model mostly relies on power purchasing agreements supply and demand cannot be adjusted in real time a small market size makes it also difficult to spread the costs of maintenance across consumers potentially resulting in weaker infrastructure and higher losses in transmission by contrast a regional approach if supported by wellmaintained infrastructure can help achieve the scale necessary to develop a wholesale market which could reduce cost of generation and allow greater cost recovery foster and bricenogarmendia