cost benefit reflective distribution charging methodology this paper describes the principle and implementation of a new mw mvar miles charging methodology which was developed to reflect three key cost drivers in distribution network development the distance used to support nodal real and reactive power injection withdrawal the degree of support offered by the network assets and the operating condition of the supporting assets in terms of their power factors the inclusion of the latter driver allows the developed charging methodology to reward network users who are contributing to better power factors and better network utilization while penalizing customers who worsen power factors and network utilization as a consequence the charging model is able to provide forward looking incentives for network customers to behave in a manner to better the network condition which will in turn help to reduce the cost of future network development in addition the separation of real and reactive power pricing would give network users clear indications of the cost of their reactive power draw from the network which in turn could help them to evaluate the economics in investing in reactive power compensation devices the proposed charging methodology is demonstrated on a practical eight busbar distribution system with a mixed demand and embedded generation eg this paper results from work undertaken in a project on distribution charging methodologies for western power distribution the views in this paper expressed are not those of western power distribution

distribution pricing based on yardstick regulation summary form only given as follows transmission and distribution t d pricing has been one of the keystones of the ongoing deregulation and privatization process in the power industry the electricity market has been established based on the assumption of open access and nondiscriminatory use of the t d assets as t d business remains as a monopoly it is necessary to provide economic regulation many papers have dealt with transmission pricing and certain maturity has been reached in this area but this is not true in the case of distribution services this paper focuses on the distribution pricing methods and suggests one that is currently under development in brazil this method is based on incremental costs derived from the aggregated expansion plan of a particular utility named model utility this utility was obtained by comparisons among the real distribution companies the method follows the fundamentals of the yardstick regulation

unbundling of transmission and ancillary services ii cost based pricing framework for pt i see ibid vol 12 no 2 1997 this paper presents a systematic framework for pricing transmission and ancillary services in competitive power markets this framework is based on the recovery of fixed and operating costs and it meets the traditional revenue requirements it is practical feasible easy to implement and to regulate it can be implemented with minimum transition cost this network flow dependent and nondiscriminatory framework is based on the decomposition approach presented in part i of this paper this decomposition forms an essential part of the proposed framework for usage based recovery of the fixed and operating costs the transmission system related fixed cost component is recovered from all transactions based on percentage utilization of the transmission system equipment the charge is based on the actual network power flows the ancillary service charge for a given transaction can be computed as the sum of the costs incurred at secondary generation for compensating the imbalance caused by that specific transaction the path providing function of the transmission grid is viewed as a true monopolistic service its pricing is cost based and charge for its use is usage based the generation based ancillary service supply can be made competitive its pricing is market based and charge for it is usage based a global overview of the proposed pricing strategy is analyzed in the context of other alternatives especially cost based methods a numerical example on a five bus system is given to illustrate the use of this pricing strategy

dissipation of contestable rents by small numbers of contenders the theory of rent seeking with its origins in the observations of gordon tullock 1967 or to use jagdish bhagwati s 1982 proposed term the theory of directly unproductive profit seeking activities is concerned with the potentially adverse effects on resource allocation of incentives to cap ture and defend artificially contrived rents and transfers the scope for so cial loss proposed by the theory derives from the relation between the value of a contestable prize and the value of the resources attracted into the con test to determine the beneficiary of the prize underlying this social loss is a specification of how rational behavior by optimizing agents links the value of the prize sought to the resources expended it has been traditional to assume competitive behavior in describing the activities of lobbying and influence seeking then if some further condi tions are satisfied l the total value of the resources expended precisely equals the value of the prize sought so dissipation is complete 2 conse quently the social cost associated with contestability of a rent can be in ferred from the value of the rent itself and the detailed and hard to come by information on individual outlays made in the course of the contest be comes unnecessary by basing their analyses on competitive dissipation contributors to the rent seeking literature see the review by robert tollison 1982 have been able to presume that the observed value of a contested rent is an exact measure of the associated social cost of monopoly power or regu lation similarly in the trade theoretic literature where the rights contested are to quota premia or revenues from trade taxes krueger 1974 bhagwati

calculating short run marginal costs of active and reactive power production proper pricing of active and reactive power is an important issue for economic and secure operations of power systems in an open transmission access ota environment this paper presents a flexible formulation for this purpose the proposed formulation identifies an important price component for reactive power which is fundamentally different from those existing in the literature this makes the pricing of reactive power more understandable the proposed approach is efficient for real time application and allows for carrying out active and reactive power pricing simultaneously or independently through the use of the decoupled optimal power flow formulation price signals derived from this approach are quite meaningful from an engineering point of view in addition the proposed approach can be easily extended to evaluate nugs and wheeling transactions the paper includes test results on the 30 and 118 bus ieee standard systems

allocation of transmission fixed charges an overview the application of marginal cost in pricing the transmission services has shown not effective mainly due to revenue reconciliation problems to overcome this a set of other methods derived from the mw mile rule has been suggested to allocate transmission fixed costs this paper compares such methods known as embedded cost methods in a centralized transmission network environment although these methods actually share the total cost and are very simple they are usually rejected due to the lack of a good economic reasoning the economic issue and the impact on the system expansion planning of such allocation are addressed in this paper some examples with the brazilian transmission system illustrate the results derived from this analysis

wheeling rates of reactive power flow under marginal cost pricing wheeling is the transmission of electrical power and reactive power from a seller to a buyer through a transmission network owned by a third party the wheeling rate is an area of intense research in view of increased deregulation this paper uses a wheeling rate based on marginal cost pricing and implemented using a modification of the optimal power flow opf a case study based on the ieee 30 bus system illustrates the magnitudes and ranges that wheeling rates might have in different circumstances special attention is paid to reactive wheeling which cannot be analyzed with a dc model used by previous authors the ratio of wheeling rates between real and reactive flow shows the importance of the latter the paper also discusses the significance of this for the trade off between paying for reactive wheel or investing in compensating plant

towards a competitive market for reactive power this paper presents the design of a competitive market for reactive power ancillary services generator reactive power capability characteristics are used to analyze the reactive power costs and subsequently to construct a bidding framework the reactive power market is settled on uniform price auction using a compromise programming approach based on a modified optimal power flow model the paper examines market power issues in these markets and identifies locations where strategic market power advantages are present that need to be removed through investments in reactive power devices

distribution access pricing application of the oftel rule to a yardstick competition scheme the paper formulates an access pricing model applied to electricity distribution based on the uk office of telecommunications oftel model originally structured to price telecommunications monopolistic essential facilities the aim is to achieve an optimal access price charge in an environment where a distribution network monopoly serves both regulated and nonregulated customers the nonregulated market faces competition so that the competitors must use the network to reach their customers a usage based hybrid model is proposed to couple with a tariff scheme for regulated customers that uses yardstick competition a way to set appropriated opportunity costs by the use of the oftel model is introduced finally the paper focuses on properly recognizing both regulated distribution and competitive supply costs the scheme is assessed within the chilean regulatory scheme proposing a way to establish marginal and fixed distribution costs for distribution companies

uniform marginal pricing for the remuneration of distribution networks a new method for distribution access via uniform pricing for the remuneration of distribution networks is presented the proposed approach merges in a unified framework the investments the optimal network operation requirements the effect of the price elasticity of demand and the application of hourly pricing for demand side management purposes hourly uniform marginal prices understood as tariffs of use of the network are obtained from maximum social welfare condition sending efficient signals to the utility and consumers related to the optimal operation of the grid and use of the energy at peak and valley hours this method is used in the context of a performance based ratemaking regulation to get model companies from operational optimized real networks capital fees are integrated in the marginal tariff of use by means of the new replacement value concept broadly used in yardstick competition the model is stated as a mixed integer linear optimization problem suitable to be solved through well known linear programming tools the methodology has been successfully tested in a 42 bus test distribution network

characterizing equilibrium rent seeking behavior a reply to tullock rent seeking contests can have different rules for designating the successful rent seeker we have investigated the case where the rule is that the successful rent seeker is the contender who has made the greatest outlay in the rentseeking quest hillman and samet this issue it is well known that for such contests there exists no nash equilibrium in pure strategies i e contenders choosing outlays as strategies we show however that there does exist a unique equilibrium in mixed strategies the equilibrium has the characteristic that the expected value of outlays made by the rival contenders equals the value of the prize being contested without regard for the number of contenders hence for any number of contenders rent dissipation is expecta

reactive power as an ancillary service this paper addresses the problem of reactive power procurement by an independent system operator iso in deregulated electricity markets a reactive bid structure is proposed in the context of a reactive power market based on the reactive power price offers and technical constraints involved in reactive power planning a two tier approach is developed to determine the most beneficial reactive power contracts for the iso the reactive capability of a generator and therefore the opportunity costs in providing reactive power is also included in the model uncertainty in reactive demand and in reactive bids of participating parties is incorporated through monte carlo simulations and the expected reactive power procurement plan for the iso is hence determined the cigre 32 bus network approximately representing the swedish system is used for the studies

cost of wheeling methodologies the cost of wheeling and the methodology by which it is computed is a high priority problem throughout the power industry due to the growth in transmission facilities the cost differentials between utility companies and the dramatic growth in nonutility generation capacity this paper contains descriptions and summaries of computational procedures and data requirements of four embedded cost methodologies two long run incremental cost methods and the short run marginal cost method four methodologies are also presented for allocating the wheeling costs among a number of wheels when simultaneously present on a company s system as required for the standard long run incremental cost method

the costs of wheeling and optimal wheeling rates wheeling is the transmission of electrical energy from a buyer to a seller through a transmission network owned by a third party this paper provides a theoretically sound yet practical to implement basis for setting wheeling rates these wheeling rates are based on marginal costs determined by losses and effects of line flow and voltage magnitude constraints adjusted up or down as necessary to account for embedded capital costs i e revenue reconciliation simple numerical examples are provided to illustrate interesting phenomena such as negative wheeling rates which yield positive net revenue comparisons with present day wheeling rates show that major differences exist the wheeling rates of this paper yield a no lose situation for the buying selling and wheeling utilities

social capital at the top effects of social similarity and status on ceo compensation this study explored the effects of social capital measured both absolutely and relatively on ceo compensation in a sample of 61 ceo compensation committee chairperson dyads we controlled for var

rent seeking rent defending and rent dissipation in the preceding analyses of rent defending the posner model yielded welfare losses in excess of the combined areas of the tullock rectangle and the harberger triangle in only one instance furthermore this particular circumstance necessitated voluntary participation in a game with a negative expected value 13 for the tullock rogerson model the explicit addition of rent defenders had no impact on aggregate dissipation

the thrill of victory the agony of defeat this paper presents experimental evidence from a rent seeking exercise where the highest bidder wins the rent but all bidders including the winner lose their wagers this exercise closely resembles the rent seeking dilemma facing agents in many settings there are two main conclusions from the results first there is a tendency towards overdissipation of the rent second some individuals are willing to pay more for a rent than its face value would warrant we attribute this phenomenon to a thrill of victory effect

closure to discussion of integration of price cap and yardstick competition schemes in electrical distribution regulation in the uk allocation of costs to the network users has largely been left in the hands of the distributors with the regulator having no direct influence over the prices charged to individual customer distribution companies largely use conventional pricing models that attempts to identify costs attributable to different customer groups domestic industrial and commercial on the other hand one of the basic objectives of the ongoing reforms of electricity supply industries around the world is to promote competition in the generation and retail segments of the industry both generators and retailers require access to network services and therefore a necessary pre condition for competition to develop is open and nondiscriminatory access to transmission and distribution networks by all electricity prices at wholesale electricity market in uk average at about 2 2 5 p kwh while the retail price of electricity is currently about 6 7 p kwh transmission and distribution networks together with the supply business are responsible for the difference between retail and wholesale prices with energy provided much closer to the load the value of dispersed kwh may be higher since the costs of bought in network services to facilitate product delivery from point of purchase to point of sale is likely to be considerably lower what is important to recognize is that the issue of competitiveness of embedded generation is a network pricing problem at present however distribution network pricing conceptualized for passive distribution networks does not recognize this impact and is not able to facilitate competition in generation clearly location specific impact of dispersed generation cannot be captured by the generic cost allocation scheme currently used and this considerably disadvantages the competitiveness of dispersed sources

localized reactive power markets using the concept of voltage control areas in this paper we present the design of a localized competitive market for reactive power ancillary services at the level of individual voltage control areas the concept of electrical distance has been used to identify the different voltage control areas within a power system the proposed reactive power market is settled on uniform price auction using a modified optimal power flow model uniform prices for various components of reactive power service are obtained for each voltage control area in the study cases described in the paper we examine whether such a localized reactive power market is more desirable than a common system wide reactive power market

wheeling rates based on marginal cost theory knowledge of what rates for wheeling electric power should be if based on marginal costs is vital in the debate on how wheeling should be priced the authors present extensive computations of marginal costs sensitivities to losses constraints load levels amount of power wheeled revenue reconciliation etc are examined in the context of two case studies revenue reconciliation for capital recovery is described briefly