This article explores three questions: how and why the reform of the electricity industry was initiated; how the reform policies were translated into a standard template; and how the template was transferred to and implemented in development and transition economies. It argues that the template for reform sold by the World Bank did not work because of the original disconnection between the economic ideals and political reality, the over-emphasis on economic performance at the expense of physical and engineering attributes of the industry, and the neglect of the differences between development and developing and transition economies. It examines the electricity reform in China, India and Russia to show: (1) the template was built more on fallacies than realities; and (2) any effort to impose the same reform model on countries with different political and economic systems and at different development stages is doomed to fail. (C) 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.