This article attempts to demonstrate and illustrate important relationships between the concept of the independent economic regulator and the evolution of emerging nation electric power sectors from patterns of government dominance that have undermined both their efficiency and their receptivity to substantial private sector involvement. It re-emphasizes the important relationships between industry structure, competition, market mechanisms and regulation; and the important distinctions between the different roles government can and should play in the power sector in different stages of evolution - as owner, manager, regulator and political policy maker. It seeks to put content and meaning into the concept of the independent regulator in the broader context of power sector reform. It distills from the experience of those countries with developed regulatory systems a series of practical guidelines or principles that may be helpful in the design and implementation of regulatory regimes for electricity and other infrastructural industries in emerging nations in the process of transformation from government dominated monopolies.