regulation by simulation the role of production cost models in electricity planning and pricing this paper is a case study on the role of complex computer simulation models in the regulation of the electricity industry the analysis focuses on electricity production cost simulation models as they are used to set prices for certain nonutility generators in california this represents an early part of the trend toward markets for electric power and away from pure monopoly supply the introduction of even limited competition creates conditions both favoring and hindering the reliability of cost estimates and demonstrates the sensitivity of results to problem specification and model implementation attention is focused on the representation of power system operational constraints particularly the unit commitment problem in the modeling process and their effect on the prices which result examples from the litigation history illustrate the problem of managing the strategic use and abuse of modeling techniques for competitive advantage highly structured procedures for using models in such situations offer some constraints on manipulation by competing parties otherwise experts are apt to overwhelm regulators

a dynamic real option based investment model for renewable energy portfolios this work proposes a dynamic model to devise the optimal risk averse investment policy in a portfolio of complementary renewable sources for a generation company in the brazilian power system the proposed method merges a static energy contracting model based on a hybrid robust and stochastic optimization approach with a mean reverting binomial lattice model for real option valuation the proposed merge extends previous works by providing support to risk averse investment decisions in complementary renewable sources dynamically distributed over time the most important results of the model are how much capacity to invest or build from each renewable source how much to sell from the energy portfolio in bilateral contracts and the optimal timing to invest unlike previous reported works our model takes into account three classes of uncertainties simultaneously renewable production of candidate sources and prices in the spot and contract markets a case study with realistic data from the brazilian power system is presented to illustrate the value of our model

cross hedging and forward contract pricing of electricity we consider the problem of an electric power marketer offering a fixed price forward contract to provide electricity that it purchases from a potentially volatile and unpredictable fledgling spot energy market one option for the risk averse marketer who wants to hedge against the spot price volatility is to engage in cross hedging to reduce the contract s profit variance and to determine the forward contract price as a risk adjusted price the sum of a baseline price and a risk premium we show how the marketer can estimate the spot price relationship between two wholesale energy markets for the purpose of cross hedging as well as the optimal hedge and the forward contract s baseline price and risk premium

using real option analysis for highly uncertain technology investments the case of wind energy technology this study examines the feasibility of using a theoretical model and empirical analysis methods to value renewable energy re investment from perspective of real option analysis roa based on use of a roa approach the re value is evaluated with respect to its ability to conform to the main sensitivity analysis of re investment as well as an empirical method devised to value re investment by using actual data the economic intuitiveness underlying the decision making process for re investment is elucidated while empirical analysis is performed to demonstrate the effectiveness of the options value embedded in current development planning in taiwan for wind energy in addition to revealing the advantages of re development when considering real option analytical results indicate that roa is a highly effective means of quantifying how investment planning uncertainty including managerial flexibility influences re development besides evaluating the value of current re investment this study demonstrates that results of the theoretical model empirical analysis and sensitivity analysis correlate well with each other restated the value of developing re increases when increasing the underlying price time to maturity risk free rate and volatility conversely the value of developing re decreases when increasing the exercise price

optimal clustering of time periods for electricity demand side management several pure binary integer optimization models are developed for clustering time periods by similarity for electricity utilities seeking assistance with pricing strategies the models include alternative objectives for characterizing various notions of within cluster distances admit as feasible only clusters that are contiguous and allow for circularity where time periods at the beginning and end of the planning cycle may be in the same cluster restrictions upon cluster size may conveniently be included without the need of additional constraints the models are populated with a real world dataset of electricity usage for 93 buildings and solutions and run times attained by conventional optimization software are compared with those by dynamic programming or by a greedy algorithm applicable to one of the models that run in polynomial time the results provide time of use segments that an electricity utility may employ for selective pricing for peak and off peak time periods to influence demand for the purpose of load leveling

market price behavior of wholesale electricity products texas abstract applying a regression based approach to a newly developed sample of over 60 000 hourly observations for 01 01 2011 12 30 2017 we answer the question what moves the day ahead market dam prices for energy and ancillary services as and the real time market rtm price for energy in the electric reliability council of texas ercot our answer comprises the following findings that capture the interdependence of ercot s energy and as products 1 the dam energy price increases with the day ahead forecasts of natural gas price system load and as requirements but declines with nuclear and wind generation s forecasts 2 the as prices increase with the dam energy price and the as procurement forecasts but decline with the as offer forecasts and 3 the rtm energy price increases with the dam energy price but diverges from the dam energy price due to forecasting errors related to the dam energy price s fundamental drivers these findings imply that texas can reduce the prices for day ahead energy day ahead as and real time energy via wind generation development and demand side management further texas can improve its electricity trading efficiency by improving ercot s forecast accuracy to narrow the rtm energy price s divergence from the dam energy price

discovering price load relationships in california s electricity market this paper reports on characterizing recent price behavior in the califomia electricity market market participants that is producers consumers and traders are highly motivated by the potential for profits to develop strategies to explore and exploit the limits of system operation these strategies should be reflected in the market as different price to load relationships we show that a number of regimes i e characteristic behaviors exist in the price time series and provide a brief analysis of each regime knowledge of the number of regimes their characteristics and switching dynamics allows insight into the market and power system performance

option value of gasification technology within an emissions trading scheme investment analysis is mostly implemented with discounted cash flow dcf methods such as the net present value npv the problem in a typical application of these methods is the limited ability to value real options management s ability to adapt to changing market conditions or to revise decisions this paper presents a simulation model in which the investment is regarded as a single firm problem in an operating environment with multiple exogenous and stochastic prices the simulation model is used to explore the impact of emissions trading and in particular the european union emissions trading scheme eu ets on investments in integrated gasification combined cycle igcc plants two real case studies are presented modifications of an existing condensing power plant and a new combined heat and power plant the benefit of the selected approach is that it can take into account the value of multiple simultaneous real options better than a standard dcf analysis the results show that a straightforward application of dcf analysis can lead to biased results in competitive energy markets within an emissions trading scheme where a number of uncertainties potentially combined with several real options can make quantitative investment appraisals very complex

optimal economic dispatch and risk management of thermal power plants in deregulated markets this paper presents a methodology for the valuation optimization market margin and credit risk management of gas fired power plants and associated tolling contracts term structure models for the power and gas forward curves are employed to facilitate hedging and risk adjustment and for improved forecasting of short term prices the model for the power forward curve is capable of reproducing the important phenomena often observed in power markets including spot price spikes and spike clustering negative prices and the empirically observed volatility term structures of power and gas forward prices as well as the correlation term structure between these forward curves the method solves the stochastic dynamic optimization problem that arises from the inclusion of the various operational constraints of gas fired power plants including minimum uptime and downtime requirements ramp rate restrictions and costs variable output and efficiency rates and minimum generation levels the model involves the so

valuation of commodity based swing options in the energy markets in particular the electricity and natural gas markets many contracts incorporate flexibility of delivery options known as swing or take or pay options subject to daily as well as periodic constraints these contracts permit the option holder to repeatedly exercise the right to receive greater or smaller amounts of energy we extract market information from forward prices and volatilities and build a pricing framework for swing options based on a one factor mean reverting stochastic process for energy prices that explicitly incorporates seasonal effects we present a numerical scheme for the valuation of swing options calibrated for the case of natural gas

toward a model for international business ethics this paper briefly examines the topic of business ethics and attempts to suggest a code of ethics for multinational firms while most companies have basic policies on employee integrity confidentiality and sexual harassment relatively few have established policies regarding bribery exploitive child labor human rights violations and other issues they may encounter in the global market place drake 1998 until recently very few companies had truly global operations consequently little attention was paid to the issue of ethical guidelines in a global context recent changes in international markets have led to an explosion of corporations with global operations and the need for a global code of ethics has grown commensurately in this paper we explore the issue of global business ethics and attempt to provide a framework for future discussion we also examine some of the unique difficulties surrounding the development of any set of global business standards key among these difficulties is the issue of competing ethical values in home and host countries

electricity market price volatility the case of ontario abstract price volatility analysis has been reported in the literature for most competitive electricity markets around the world however no studies have been published yet that quantify price volatility in the ontario electricity market which is the focus of the present paper in this paper a comparative volatility analysis is conducted for the ontario market and its neighboring electricity markets volatility indices are developed based on historical volatility and price velocity concepts previously applied to other electricity market prices and employed in the present work the analysis is carried out in two scenarios in the first scenario the volatility indices are determined for the entire price time series in the second scenario the price time series are broken up into 24 time series for each of the 24 h and volatility indices are calculated for each specific hour separately the volatility indices are also applied to the locational marginal prices of several pricing points in the new england new york and pjm electricity markets the outcomes reveal that price volatility is significantly higher in ontario than the three studied neighboring electricity markets furthermore comparison of the results of this study with similar findings previously published for 15 other electricity markets demonstrates that the ontario electricity market is one of the most volatile electricity markets world wide this high volatility is argued to be associated with the fact that ontario is a single settlement real time market

california s dysfunctional electricity market policy lessons on market restructuring abstract the restructured electricity market in california has been behaving oddly and badly since summer of 2000 electricity prices have been exorbitantly high and highly volatile despite the high prices the three investor owned utilities are in dire financial shape because they cannot pass on the high costs of wholesale power to their customers due to a rate freeze many policymakers in the us and elsewhere want to know what went wrong in california trying to avoid a similar fate as they proceed with their own market liberalization plans

dynamic capacity planning using strategic slack valuation in this paper we analyze a particular aspect of capacity planning that is concerned with the active trading of production facilities for a homogenous product market we provide a theoretical rationale for the valuation and trading of these assets based on a metric of strategic slack we show that trading production assets with non additive portfolio profitability involves complex coordination with multiple equilibria and that these equilibria depend on the foresight in the planning horizon using the concept of strategic slack we have analyzed the dynamics of market structure the impact of asset trading on the level of production of the industry and to derive boundaries on the value of the traded assets moreover through computational learning the formulation is applied to a large oligopolistic electricity market showing that plant trading tends to lead to increased market concentration high prices lower production and a decrease in consumer surplus

demand generation and price in the norwegian market for electric power we analyse the simultaneous determination of supply demand and price in the competitive norwegian electricity market deregulated in 1991 this market is pretty mature and it offers numerous data required carrying out an interesting study stochastic and seasonal water inflow water storage possibilities and demand variations make this market interesting both from a theoretical and empirical view we establish a small supply demand model of the norwegian electricity market the model is estimated using weekly data from 1994 to 1995 data for 1996 are used for post sample examination of the model unexpected inflow snow and temperature conditions explain a large part of the variation in the electricity generation demand and price within and post sample simulation of the estimated model reproduce demand and price patterns considerably well

corporate autonomy and buyer supplier relationships the case of unsafe mattel toys this article analyses supplier buyer relationships where the suppliers adapt to the buyers needs and expectations to gain mutual advantages in some cases such closely knit relationships lead to violations of the autonomy of one or both partners a concept of corporate autonomy ca is developed to analyze this problem three different facets can be distinguished rule autonomy executive autonomy and control autonomy a case study of mattel s problems with lead contaminated toys produced in china shows that the ca of buyer and supplier can be restricted as a result of a dysfunctional partnership involving a moral dilemma

incorporating fuel constraints and electricity spot prices into the stochastic unit commitment problem the electric power industry is going through deregulation as a result the load on the generating units of a utility is becoming increasingly unpredictable furthermore electric utilities may need to buy power or sell their production to a power pool that serves as a spot market for electricity these trading activities expose utilities to volatile electricity prices in this paper we present a stochastic model for the unit commitment that incorporates power trading into the picture our model also accounts for fuel constraints and prices that may vary with electricity prices and demand the resulting model is a mixed integer program that is solved using lagrangian relaxation and bender s decomposition using this solution approach we solve problems with 729 demand scenarios on a single processor to within 0 1 of the optimal solution in less than 10 minutes our numerical results indicate that significant savings can be achieved when the spot market is entered into the problem and when stochastic policy is adopted instead of a deterministic one

the influence of distributed generation penetration levels on energy markets planning of national energy policies brings new dilemmas with the introduction of distributed generators dg economic theory suggests that a perfectly competitive market would lead to efficient pricing in the absence of competition regulators play a fundamental role in attracting reasonably priced finance in order to maintain refurbish and increase the infrastructure and provide services at a reasonable cost energy market price equilibrium is mainly dependent on suppliers generators energy sources and demand represented by conventional utility grid users its behavior is similar to that of other commodities as generation becomes less centralized with the increasing economic viability of renewable energy sources new suppliers are being connected to the grid such evolution means the transition from a monopolistic market to a broader and more open environment with an increasing number of competitors we make use of variational inequalities to model a hypothetical dg market in different scenarios from monopoly to oligopoly to open market such an approach enables different equilibrium outcomes due to different dg penetration levels based on these findings we argue that energy policies for such markets must be developed according to each specific stage of the grid s lifecycle we show how energy policies and market regulations may affect such a transition which may be catastrophic if not managed properly and which is dependent on the energy mix

comparative analysis of features of polish and lithuanian day ahead electricity market prices the goal of this article is to better understand the processes of electricity market price formation in poland and lithuania through an analysis of the features volatility and spikes of lithuanian and polish day ahead electricity market prices and to assess how acquired electricity price features could affect the achievement of the main goals of the national energy policy the following indicators have been calculated to determine electricity market price volatility the oscillation coefficient the coefficient of variation an adjusted coefficient of variation the standard deviation indicator the daily velocity indicator based on the overall average price and the daily velocity indicator based on the daily average price critical values for electricity market price have been calculated to evaluate price spikes this analysis reveals that electricity market price volatility is moderate in poland and high in lithuania electricity price spikes have been an observable phenomenon both in lithuanian and in polish day ahead electricity markets but they are more common in lithuania encompassing 3 15 of the time period analysed in poland and 4 68 of the time period analysed in lithuania volatile spiking and increasing electricity prices in day ahead electricity markets in lithuania and poland create preconditions and substantiate the relevance of implementation of the national energy policies and measures

valuation and optimal operation of electric power plants in competitive markets we present an algorithm for the valuation and optimal operation of hydroelectric and thermal power generators in deregulated electricity markets real options theory is used to derive nonlinear partial integro differential equations pides for the valuation and optimal operating strategies of both types of facilities the equations are designed to incorporate a wide class of spot price models that can exhibit the same time dependent mean reverting dynamics and price spikes as those observed in most electricity markets particular attention is paid to the operational characteristics of real power generators for thermal power plants these characteristics include variable start up times and costs control response time lags minimum generating levels nonlinear output functions and structural limitations on ramp rates for hydroelectric units head effects and environmental constraints are addressed we illustrate the models with numerical examples of a pump storage facility and a thermal power plant this pide framework can achieve high levels of computational speed and accuracy while incorporating a wide range of spot price dynamics and operational characteristics

deregulated power prices comparison of volatility abstract we examine electrical power price variability for 14 deregulated markets power price volatility is measured by price velocity the daily average of the absolute value of price change per hour deregulated markets show a wide variability in price velocity some price velocity is expected and arises from the daily diurnal price pattern which differs significantly between markets even when the expected daily variability in price is removed the residual unexpected variability differs between markets some deregulated markets most notably britain and spain show patterns that are predictable and consistent and have low values of unexpected price velocity these markets create a climate conducive to consumers facing the market through real time pricing and shaping consumption behaviors in response to price changes other markets for example south australia and alberta have patterns that are inconsistent and irregular and hence are hard for a customer to interpret a customer in such a market will have a higher incentive to avoid demand side management and escape risk through hedging mechanisms

deregulated power prices comparison of diurnal patterns we examine electrical power price and in particular its daily and average weekday vs weekend pattern of change for 14 deregulated markets power price in deregulated markets shows fundamentally different patterns north american markets show a monotonic diurnal weekday price pattern while all other markets studied show more than one price peak deregulated power markets differ in maximum vs minimum daily average price and in average weekday to weekend price in turn creating a different incentive for a consumer to time shift power consuming activities markets differ in the extent to which a small fraction of the days shapes the average diurnal pattern and value of price deregulated markets show a wide variation in the correlation between load and price some deregulated markets most notably britain and spain show patterns that are predictable and consistent and hence that can encourage a customer to shape consumption behaviors other markets for example south australia have patterns that are inconsistent and irregular and hence are hard for a customer to interpret a customer in such a market will have a higher incentive to escape risk through hedging mechanisms

evolution and mixed strategies abstract selten 1980 j theoret biol 84 93 101 showed that no mixed equilibria are evolutionarily stable when players can condition their strategies on their roles in a game alternatively harsanyi s 1973 int j game theory 2 1 23 purification argument implies that all mixed equilibria are approximations of strict and hence evolutionarily stable equilibria of games with slightly perturbed payoffs this paper reconciles these results approximations of mixed equilibria have high invasion barriers and hence are likely to persist when payoff perturbations are relatively important and role identification is relatively noisy when payoff perturbations are unimportant and role identification is precise approximations of mixed equilibria will have small invasion barriers and are unlikely to persist journal of economic literature classification numbers c70 c78

multinational corporate power influence and responsibility in global supply chains this paper examines the question of how to determine the extent of a multinational corporation mnc s corporate social responsibility for actions by its suppliers drawing on three theories of power and influence from the organization and management literature resource dependence theory social exchange theory and social network theory this paper presents a conceptual framework for analysing the extent of power and influence of an mnc in a global supply chain based on a consideration of i economic and non economic exchanges and ii direct and indirect exchanges in the mnc s industry network the paper also shows how the legal concept of complicity can be incorporated by considering the knowledge links of the mnc to other organizations in the industry network finally the paper demonstrates how the concepts can be integrated to construct a power assessment grid which can be used to assess the extent of responsibility of an mnc for the actions of its suppliers and other parties in the industry as well as a map of power and knowledge relationships between organizations in the industry which can be used for further analyses using social network analysis techniques

hourly electricity prices in day ahead markets this paper focuses on the characteristics of hourly electricity prices in day ahead markets in these markets quotes for day ahead delivery of electricity are submitted simultaneously for all hours in the next day the same information set is used for quoting all hours of the day the dynamics of hourly electricity prices does not behave as a time series process instead these prices should be treated as a panel in which the prices of 24 cross sectional hours vary from day to day this paper introduces a panel model for hourly electricity prices in day ahead markets and examines their characteristics the results show that hourly electricity prices exhibit hourly specific mean reversion and that they oscillate around an hourly specific mean price level furthermore a block structured cross sectional correlation pattern between the hours is apparent

value of an option to purchase electric power the case of uncertain consumption abstract large manufacturers and corporations often purchase options on power to protect themselves against unanticipated price increases this paper analyzes the impact of uncertainty in power consumption by a corporation on the value of an option to purchase electric power because there is no economically viable method to store power these options are exercised to satisfy immediate consumption needs only the amount exercised may differ from the maximum amount contracted which in turn alters the payoffs that accrue to the option contract we apply a monte carlo methodology to show that consumption uncertainty may substantively lower the price of an option contract under different conditions

markets and pricing for interruptible electric power a market is proposed for interruptible or callable forward contracts for electric power in which the consumer grants the power supplier the right to interrupt a given unit of load in return for a price discount the callable forward contracts are traded continuously until the time of use this allows recourse for those customers with uncertain demand while risk averse consumers can minimize their price risk by purchasing early callable forward contracts are simple in form and can be directly incorporated into the utility s economic dispatch procedure

evolution in bayesian games ii stability of purified equilibria abstract we study the evolutionary stability of purified equilibria of two player normal form games providing simple sufficient conditions for stability and for instability under the bayesian best response dynamic

evaluation of different hedging strategies for commodity price risks of industrial cogeneration plants abstract in this paper we design and evaluate eight different strategies for hedging commodity price risks of industrial cogeneration plants price developments are parameterized based on eex data from 2008 to 2011 the probability distributions derived are used to determine the value at risk var of the individual strategies which are in a final step combined in a mean variance portfolio analysis for determining the most efficient hedging strategy we find that the strategy adopted can have a marked influence on the remaining price risk quarter futures are found to be particularly well suited for reducing market price risk in contrast spot trading of co 2 certificates is found to be preferable compared to forward market trading finally portfolio optimization shows that a mix of various hedging strategies can further improve the profitability of a heat based cogeneration plant

deregulated power prices changes over time we examine price by season and by year in 14 deregulated markets by looking at diurnal price patterns and price volatility power price volatility is measured by price velocity the daily average of the absolute value of price change per hour which is broken into a component expected from the average diurnal pattern and an unexpected component deregulated markets can be categorized into three groups stable markets markets that experienced one bad period or season of high price excursion and chaotic markets britain spain and scandinavia show consistent price patterns and low unexpected price velocity a thoughtful consumer could reasonably implement demand side management dsm by shaping consumption patterns to reflect price california new zealand and alberta are examples of markets that had a period of very high price excursion we discuss factors affecting public reaction to this australian power markets have inconsistent price patterns from season to season and year to year and very high unexpected price velocity planned dsm in these markets would be very difficult we offer four policy considerations for markets considering deregulation in the future

social capital structural holes and the formation of an industry network the formation of a network is determined by the opposition of two forces the first is the reproduction of network structure as a general social resource for network members the second is the alteration of network structure by entrepreneurs for their own benefit the idea of reproduction is a conventional one in organizational sociology but has taken on increased importance due to the work of bourdieu and coleman in contrast burt stresses the entrepreneurship of individual agents in exploiting structural holes that lie between constrained positions though complementary the theories of social capital and structural holes have fundamentally different implications for network formation this paper investigates these theories by examining empirically the formation of the interorganizational network among biotechnology firms we propose that network structure determines the frequency with which a new biotechnology firm or startup establishes new relationships network structure indicates both where soci

efficient modeling and forecasting of electricity spot prices abstract the increasing importance of renewable energy especially solar and wind power has led to new forces in the formation of electricity prices hence this paper introduces an econometric model for the hourly time series of electricity prices of the european power exchange epex which incorporates specific features like renewable energy the model consists of several sophisticated and established approaches and can be regarded as a periodic var tarch with wind power solar power and load as influences on the time series it is able to map the distinct and well known features of electricity prices in germany an efficient iteratively reweighted lasso approach is used for the estimation moreover it is shown that several existing models are outperformed by the procedure developed in this paper

commitment of electric power generators under stochastic market prices a formulation for the commitment of electric power generators under a deregulated electricity market is proposed the problem is expressed as a stochastic optimization problem in which expected profits are maximized while meeting demand and standard operating constraints under an assumption of perfect competition when an electric power producer has the option of trading electricity at market prices a unit commitment schedule can be obtained by optimizing the self commitment of each unit separately subject to stochastic prices three certainty equivalent formulations of the stochastic self commitment problem are provided the procedures involve application of dynamic programming statistical analysis and asymptotic probability computations the price of electricity is represented by a stochastic model depending on demand generating unit reliabilities and temperature fluctuations we use several approximation methods normal edgeworth series expansion and monte carlo simulation for computing the required probability distributions numerical examples are provided for a market consisting of 150 generating units

characteristics of the prices of operating reserves and regulation services in competitive electricity markets in this paper characteristics of the prices of reserves and regulation services in the ontario new york and ercot electricity markets are studied more specifically price variability price jumps long range correlation and non linearity of the prices are analyzed using the available measures in the literature for the ontario electricity market the prices of 10 min spinning 10 min non spinning and 30 min operating reserves for the period may 1 2002 to december 31 2007 are analyzed for the new york market prices of the same reserves plus regulation service are studied for the period february 5 2005 to december 31 2008 for the ercot market we analyze the prices of responsive reserve regulation up and regulation down services for the period january 1 2005 to december 31 2009 the studied characteristics of operating reserve and regulation prices are also compared with those of energy prices the findings of this paper show that the studied reserve and regulation prices feature extreme volatility more frequent jumps and spikes different peak price occurrence time and lower predictability compared to the energy prices

variable capacity utilization ambient temperature shocks and generation asset valuation this paper discusses generation asset valuation in a framework where capital utilization decisions are endogenous we use real options approach for valuation of natural gas fueled turbines capital utilization choices that we explore include turning on off the unit operating the unit at increased firing temperatures overfiring and conducting preventive maintenance overfiring provides capacity enhancement which comes at the expense of reduced maintenance interval and increased costs of part replacement we consider the costs and benefits of overfiring in attempt to maximize the asset value by optimally exercising the overfire option in addition to stochastic processes governing prices we incorporate an exogenous productivity shock ambient temperature we consider how variation in ambient temperature affects the asset value through its effect on gas turbine s productivity

valuation of commodity futures and options under stochastic convenience yields interest rates and jump diffusions in the spot this paper investigates the effects of stochastic convenience yields stochastic interest rates and jumps in the spot price on the pricing of commodity futures forwards and futures options numerical examples show that one factor prices differ materially from the stochastic convenience yield two factor prices when convenience yield is considerably above its long term average the extension to a three factor model with stochastic interest rates leads to a different futures price but the forward price is unchanged the extension ofthe three factor model to include jumps in the spot price process does not affect forward or futures prices but it can have an impact on options prices the model is applied to price the present value of future cash flows from a real asset

why do electricity prices jump empirical evidence from the nordic electricity market the paper empirically explores the possible causes behind electricity price jumps in the nordic electricity market nord pool a time series model a mixed garch earji jump model capturing the com

stochastic factor model for electricity spot price the case of the nordic market this paper presents a stochastic factor based approach to mid term modeling of spot prices in deregulated electricity markets the fundamentals affecting the spot price are modeled independently and a market equilibrium model combines them to form spot price main advantage of the model is the transparency of the generated prices because each underlying factor and the dynamics between factors can be modeled and studied in detail paper shows realistic numerical examples on the forerunner scandinavian electricity market the model is used to price an exotic electricity derivative

the extent of the market examines the classical theory of the market in this paper authors consider the role of price market determination price movement in competitive and monopolistic markets extension of commodity markets

short term generation asset valuation a real options approach this paper discusses using real options to value power plants with unit commitment constraints over a short term period we formulate the problem as a multistage stochastic problem and propose a solution procedure that integrates forward moving monte carlo simulation with backward moving dynamic programming we assume that the power plant operator maximizes expected profit by deciding in each hour whether or not to run the unit that a certain lead time for commitment and decommitment decisions is necessary to start up and shut down a unit and that these commitment decisions once made are subject to physical constraints such as minimum uptime and downtime we also account for the costs associated with starting up and shutting down a unit last we assume that there are hourly markets for both electricity and the fuel used by the generator and that their prices follow ito processes using numerical simulation we show that failure to consider physical constraints may significantly overvalue a power plant

merit order effects of renewable energy and price divergence in california s day ahead and real time electricity markets abstract we answer two policy questions 1 what are the estimated merit order effects of renewable energy in the california independent system operator s caiso s day ahead market dam and real time market rtm and 2 what causes the hourly dam and rtm prices to systematically diverge the first question is timely and relevant because if the merit order effect estimates are small california s renewable energy development is of limited help in cutting electricity consumers bills but also has a lesser adverse impact on the state s investment incentive for natural gas fired generation the second question is related to the efficient market hypothesis under which the hourly rtm and dam prices tend to converge using a sample of about 21 000 hourly observations of caiso market prices and their fundamental drivers during 12 12 2012 04 30 2015 we document statistically significant estimates p value 0 01 for the dam and rtm merit order effects this finding lends support to california s adopted procurement process to provide sufficient investment incentives for natural gas fired generation we document that the rtm dam price divergence partly depends on the casio s day ahead forecast errors for system loads and renewable energy this finding suggests that improving the performance of the caiso s day ahead forecasts can enhance trading efficiency in california s dam and rtm electricity markets

who profits from innovation in global value chains a study of the ipod and notebook pcs in an era when new ideas are brought to the market by global value networks of specialists rather than by one company a key question is who captures the most value from innovation in such a structure and why this paper addresses the question of who benefits from innovation in global value chains by looking at specific computer and electronics products we apply a novel industry studies methodology for measuring the distribution of financial value across the supply chains for two models from apple s ipod family and notebook pc models from lenovo and hewlett packard hp these are all examples of globally innovated products combining technologies from the u s japan and other countries and assembled in china our analysis shows that the gross margins of apple for its high end ipod products are generally higher than those earned by hp and lenovo for notebook pcs although not so high as to be considered supernormal a key reason for the difference is that apple s control of the core software proprietary standards and complementary infrastructure of the ipod enables it to retain greater profits whereas a large share of the pc industry profits are siphoned off to microsoft and intel who control key technical standards consistent with teece 1986 our results confirm the importance of stages of technical evolution appropriability regimes and complementary assets as determinants of profiting from innovation on the other hand we find that manufacturing has become commoditized and is no longer a key to profiting from innovation in final electronic products also contrary to recent suggestions in the literature we find no evidence of a causal link between product and industry architectures instead there is a vast electronics industry architecture that can easily support product level value chain configurations ranging from modular to integrated

optional forward contracts for electric power markets this paper extends the idea of callable forward contracts which are potentially useful as demand side interruptible load contracts to their supply side analogues together these contracts allow market participants to take advantage of flexibility in generation or consumption to obtain a monetary benefit while simultaneously removing the risk of market price fluctuations this paper also considers the effects of strategic behavior on the part of market participants in their contract sales purchase decisions

risk aversion and co2 regulatory uncertainty in power generation investment policy and modeling implications abstract we consider a simulation of risk averse producers when making investment decisions in a competitive energy market who face uncertainty about future regulation of carbon dioxide emissions investments are made under regulatory uncertainty then the regulatory state is revealed and producers realize returns we consider anticipated taxes grandfathered permits and auctioned permits and show that some anticipated policies increase investment in the relatively dirty technology beliefs about the policy instrument that will be used to price carbon may be as important as certainty that carbon will be priced more generally a failure to consider risk aversion may bias policy analysis for the power sector

pricing of options on commodity futures with stochastic term structures of convenience yields and interest rates we develop a model to value options on commodity futures in the presence of stochastic interest rates as well as stochastic convenience yields in the development of the model we distinguish between forward and future convenience yields a distinction that has not been recognized in the literature assuming normality of continuously compounded forward interest rates and convenience yields and log normality of the spot price of the underlying commodity we obtain closed form solutions generalizing the black scholes merton s formulas we provide numerical examples with realistic parameter values showing that both the effect of introducing stochastic convenience yields into the model and the effect of having a short time lag between the maturity of a european call option and the underlying futures contract have significant impact on the option prices

on the evolution of comparative advantage in matching models abstract this paper examines whether comparative advantage is the long run outcome of an evolutionary process in the open economy it formalizes the notion that natural selection eliminates inefficient firms and thus leads to stable and perhaps efficient patterns of world trade instead of assuming the existence of a walrasian auctioneer we study two simple matching processes that coordinate trade between firms our central result is that specialization according to comparative advantage with the larger country possibly incompletely specialized is the unique evolutionarily stable state of the world economy

the spark spread and clean spark spread option based valuation of a power plant with multiple turbines abstract this paper offers a novel study of two key factors that affect the valuation of a natural gas fired power plant having multiple turbines carbon allowance prices and the ability to switch among turbines amid stricter environmental rules on co2 emissions a power plant operator needs to be able to judge how the purchase of carbon allowances affects the plant s expected value and whether the plant s value rises from switching among turbines this paper presents a model analysis of a spark spread and clean spark spread option based valuation of a power plant with multiple gas turbines using a bivariate and a tri variate lattice respectively results demonstrate that the purchase of co2 allowances lowers the plant s expected value conversely when operations of turbines are switched in response to price movements the plant s value increases this outcome has implications for plant management decisions when to switch among turbines and how the purchase of co2 allowances affects the plant s value

corporate social responsibility in global value chains where are we now and where are we going we outline the drivers main features and conceptual underpinnings of the compliance paradigm we then use a similar structure to investigate the drivers main features and conceptual underpinnings of the cooperative paradigm for working with csr in global value chains we argue that the measures proposed in the new cooperation paradigm are unlikely to alter power relationships in global value chains and bring about sustained improvements in workers conditions in developing country export industries after that we provide a critical appraisal of the potential and limits of the cooperative paradigm we summarize our findings and we outline avenues for research purchasing practices and labor standard noncompliance csr capacity building among local suppliers and improved csr monitoring by local resources in the developing world

wind storage interconnection and the cost of electricity generation abstract we evaluate how increasing wind generation affects wholesale electricity prices balancing payments and the cost of subsidies using the irish single electricity market sem as a test system with hourly data from 1 january 2008 to 28 august 2012 we model the spot market using a system of seemingly unrelated regressions sur where the regressions are the 24 hours of the day wind has a negative impact on the system marginal price with every mwh increase in wind generation equal to about 0 2 of the average wind generation in our sample leading to a decrease of the system marginal price of 0 018 mwh or about 0 3 of its average value we use time series models to analyse the balancing market and show that wind generation increases balancing payments as do the forecast errors of demand and wind every mwh of additional wind generation is associated with an increase in constraint payments of 3 2 or about 0 01 lack of storage increases the impact of wind on balancing payments whereas the lack of interconnection has no effect overall wind decreases costs through its effect on the electricity price more than it increases constraint payments even when storage is on outage the effect of wind remains positive after including the cost of subsidies given to wind generation

international exchanges as the basis for conceptualizing ethics in international business extant business ethics literature available for application to international business demonstrates some variety but no comprehensive principles while the domains of both international business and business ethics are expanding they are also becoming increasingly divergent at the same time the primacy accorded to the multinational enterprise in both fields ignores the socio cultural and political embeddedness of economic activities and multiple agencies in international business individuals firms nations etc some international business theorists have offered the view that international exchange should be the central building block for theories on international business in this paper it is argued that international exchange could be the fundamental unit of analysis for international business ethics as well the potentially unifying features of exchange norms and ethical principles leads the author to develop some core exchange ethics principles that are tested on three recent international business practices

a probability model for the electricity price duration curve under an oligopoly market in this paper we propose a new formulation for the price duration curve pdc using probability considerations and provide a procedure for constructing it this curve is expected to be useful in the long term prediction of market prices and is similar in spirit to the load duration curve it shows the proportion of time over a given time horizon during which the real time market price of electricity is expected to exceed specified dollar amounts the price over a long term is a stochastic quantity that depends on physical factors such as production cost load generation availability unit commitment and transmission constraints it also depends on economic factors such as strategic bidding and load elasticity we illustrate a procedure for constructing a stochastic system based model for the pdc taking into account the randomness associated with load and generator outages the effects of unit commitment transmission congestion and transmission outages are not considered we use two economic models one is due to bertrand and represents perfect competition the other model is due to rudkevich et al who have given a closed form expression for the market clearing price in an oligopoly consisting of several identical firms

entry into the electricity market uncertainty competition and mothballing options the present paper analyzes the entry strategies into the electricity market of two firms that have power plants under price uncertainty and competition we consider the symmetric and asymmetric two firms which have either a thermal power plant or a nuclear power plant the differences between the thermal power plant and the nuclear power plant such as the cost structure and operational flexibility are modeled the threshold values of market entry are calculated for each firm with either the thermal power plant or the nuclear power plant as the leader or the follower we show the dependence of cost structures on entry thresholds of the leader and the follower into the electricity market for various market and cost conditions the diagrams of the leader are also shown

path dependent options extending the monte carlo simulation approach monte carlo simulation has been used to value options since boyle s seminal paper monte carlo simulation however has not been used to its fullest extent for option valuation because of the belief that the method is not feasible for american style options this paper demonstrates how to incorporate optimal early exercise in the monte carlo method of valuing options by linking forward moving simulation and the backward moving recursion of dynamic programming through an iterative search process to demonstrate the potential of this method we use it to value american style options on the average price or asian options the computational experience reveals a flexible valuation technique with potential for application to a range of securities and financial decision problems

strategic bidding for price taker hydroelectricity producers this paper introduces a stochastic programming model that integrates strategic bids or offers for electricity in quantities and prices in a deregulated electricity market the model is designed to maximize the profits of a producer of electricity who manages a series of power plants along a river the model is compared with a previously reported stochastic model where the bidding process is disregarded the superiority of the new model is empirically demonstrated on historical data

valuing chinese feed in tariffs program for solar power generation a real options analysis newhuadu business school research fund china sustainable energy program g 1305 18257 national social science foundation of china 12zd059 ministry of education 10gbj013

evaluating replacement project of nuclear power plants under uncertainty this paper investigates the valuation of a replacement project of nuclear power plants under the deregulated electricity market the replacement project consists of two components the decision to decommission an existing plant and the decision to construct a new plant in the replacement project the decommissioning decision should be made considering not only the profitability of the existing plant but also the profitability and costs of the construction of the new plant real options theory is used to determine the optimal timing of the decommissioning and construction in order to examine the effect of decommissioning time and decision making one we consider a time lag for these decision making times we show the dependence of the replacement project value on uncertainty and time lag

electricity spot price dynamics beyond financial models we reveal properties of electricity spot prices that cannot be captured by the statistical models commonly used to model financial asset prices that are increasingly used to model electricity prices using more than eight years of half hourly spot price data from the new zealand electricity market we find that the half hourly trading periods fall naturally into five groups corresponding to the overnight off peak the morning peak daytime off peak evening peak and evening off peak the prices in different trading periods within each group are highly correlated with each other yet the correlations between prices in different groups are lower models adopted from the modeling of security prices that are currently applied to electricity spot prices are incapable of capturing this behavior we use a periodic autoregression to model prices instead showing that shocks in the peak periods are larger and less persistent than those in off peak periods and that they often reappear in the following peak period in contrast shocks in the off peak periods are smaller more persistent and die out perhaps temporarily during the peak periods current approaches to modeling spot prices cannot capture this behavior either