optimal electricity market for wind power abstract this paper is about electricity market operation when looking from the wind power producers point of view the focus in on market time horizons how many hours there is between the closing and delivering the bids the case is for the nordic countries the nordpool electricity market and the danish wind power production real data from year 2001 was used to study the benefits of a more flexible market to wind power producer as a result of reduced regulating market costs from better hourly predictions to the market wind power producer would gain up to 8 more if the time between market bids and delivery was shortened from the day ahead elspot market hourly bids by noon for 12 36 h ahead an after sales market where surplus or deficit production could be traded 2 h before delivery could benefit the producer almost as much gaining 7

statistical efficiency of double bounded dichotomous choice contingent valuation the statistical efficiency of conventional dichotomous choice contingent valuation surveys can be improved by asking each respondent a second dichotomous choice question which depends on the response to the first question if the first response is yes the second bid is some amount greater than the first bid while if the first response is no the second bid is some amount smaller this double bounded approach is shown to be asymptotically more efficient than the conventional singlebounded approach using data from a survey of californians regarding their willingness to pay for wetlands in the san joaquin valley we show that in a finite sample the gain in efficiency can be very substantial

willingness to pay for borivli national park evidence from a contingent valuation a study was conducted to survey the residents of bombay and elicit their willingness to pay for the maintainance and preservation of borivli national park bnp using the contingent valuation cv method the cv method has come under considerable criticism on account of biases that are either inherent to or generated by the survey process the present study acknowledges those and adopts techniques to either circumvent or then minimise them the authors pay special attention to hypothetical bias starting point bias embedding effects and part whole biases the authors argue that indeed it is possible to improve the quality of a cv by using special survey as well as statistical techniques so that cv results can be used for the purposes of realistic decision making this validation of the cv becomes an important objective of the study despite india being a developing country with medium to low income levels the evidence suggested that people are willing to pay for preserving environmental amenities having statistically adjusted for embedding and anchoring effects households are willing to pay exclusively for bnp on average rs 7 5 per month for the next five years extrapolating to the city of bombay this amounts to a substantial rs 20 million each month for the next five years or a present discounted value of in excess of rs 1 billion suggesting a strong interest in environmental conservation

a survey of frequency and voltage control ancillary services part i technical features this two part paper surveys the frequency and voltage control ancillary services in power systems from various parts of the world in this second part essential economic features that must be taken into account when designing markets for ancillary services are first discussed the methods adopted in eight different systems australia france germany great britain new zealand pjm spain and sweden for trading frequency and voltage control ancillary services are then compared lastly new indicators for comparing volumes and costs of ancillary services across systems are proposed and calculated for the systems included in this survey the companion paper surveys the technical features of these ancillary services

is integrated reporting determined by a country s legal system an exploratory study in recent years companies responsibilities towards society have expanded significantly and former business models have been revised in line with a more pluralist approach which takes stakeholders sustainability business ethics and transparency into account these considerations are increasingly reflected in corporate sustainability reporting i e statements reflecting the impact of business practices related to economic environmental and social perspectives however the data contained in such documents are reported independently of the financial aspects implying a disconnection between the three pillars of business strategy in order to avoid this shortcoming some leading companies have developed integrated reporting which expresses the interconnections between a firm s strategy governance performance and prospects as well as the contexts within which it operates the aim of this paper is to examine the influence of one of the most important institutional factors the legal system on the development of integrated reports the analysis of a non balanced sample of 750 international companies for the years 2008 2010 in which a logit methodology is applied to panel data reveals the impact of this institutional factor the results show that companies located in civil law countries and where indices of law and order are high are more likely to create and publish a broad range of integrated reports thus favouring decision taking by the different stakeholders on the basis of these findings two policy recommendations are proposed first it may be necessary to establish national laws and protection mechanisms to promote and ensure holistic transparency second managers must be able to decide on the appropriate disclosure practices in the context of their own legal environment in order to obtain maximum benefits from their decisions the results should be considered as having only preliminary value due to the limited number of firms that disclose this typology of reporting and because of the limitations of the data sample

different shades of green global oil and gas companies and renewable energy abstract the long term energy transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy raises critical questions about the future of oil and gas firms this study asks why some oil and gas firms are committed to renewable energy while others continue to maintain a distinct fossil fuels focus with little or no investment in renewable energy the analysis reveals that there is a wide range in the degree to which oil and gas firms have invested in renewable energy some firms have no investments and others have investments in multiple renewable energy technologies across many countries we examine a combination of country based institutional factors and firm based knowledge and experience factors that could impact oil and gas firms decisions to invest in renewable energy activity regulative and normative pressures impacted renewable energy investments as did environmental citizenship and the degree of internationalization the study s integration of country level factors with firm level experiences provides insights into how firms are dealing with the energy transition by examining areas such as sustainability and regulatory policy the paper sheds light on the ways in which scholars can tap into measures and methods that can extend traditional ib research

building institutions based on information disclosure lessons from gri s sustainability reporting abstract global reporting initiative gri is the best known framework for voluntary reporting of environmental and social performance by business worldwide using extensive empirical data including interviews and documentary analysis we examine gri s organizational field and conclude that since its modest beginnings in 1999 gri has been by several measures a successful institutionalization project but the institutional logic of this new entity as an instrument for corporate sustainability management leaves out one of the central elements of the initial vision for gri as a mobilizing agent for many societal actors this emergent logic reflects gri s dominant constituency large global companies and financial institutions and international business management consultancies and not the less active civil society organizations and organized labor we attribute these developments to factors such as building gri within the existing institutional structures the highly inclusive multistakeholder process and the underdeveloped base of information users from the institutional theory perspective this case shows how the process of institutionalization is deeply affected by initial strategies of the founders and how it reproduces existing power relations from the governance perspective this case leads us to question the power of commodified information to mobilize civil society and to strengthen governance based on partnerships

the relationship between disclosures of corporate social performance and financial performance evidences from gri reports in manufacturing industry whether the corporate social performance affects the financial performance is still unclear in many manufacturing companies we commonly expect on one side that profitable corporations have stronger incentives to reveal information on the social performance in order to improve their publicity on the other hand companies may face the fear of rising costs due to corporate social responsibility csr activities with increasing concerns of csr it is timely to investigate the relationship between the disclosure of corporate social performance and the financial performance in this paper with the above study objective we use global reporting initiative gri reports of 75 sample companies collect evidences by applying the method of structured content analysis of the cases and attempt to identify this relationship the corporate social performance is measured by the indicators according to the gri guidelines i e within the categories of labor practices and decent work human rights society as well as product responsibility financial performance is measured by return on equity sales growth and cash flow sales ratio using statistical evaluation methods our results indicate that the categories of human rights society as well as product responsibility display a significant and positive correlation with the return on equity same conclusion also holds for many csr indicators nevertheless when examining the csr practices across different manufacturing sectors we have not observed significant differences the study results are important for understanding the development and implementation of csr practices in the manufacturing industry

a review of sustainable supply chain management practices in canada there is a growing body of research on the theory and practice of sustainable supply chain management sscm however relatively little research has been conducted on the extent to which corporations have integrated sustainability principles into the management of their supply chain and the evaluation of supplier performance the purpose of this article is to explore the extent to which corporate sustainability principles are integrated into supply chain management scm in corporations canada is used as a case study in this article the study included a content analysis of one hundred canadian corporate sustainable development reports and in depth interviews with 18 canadian experts on sscm the article highlights the wide array of ways in which canadian corporations address sscm issues amongst other topics issues associated with supply chain governance standards for sscm collaboration with suppliers performance measurement and accountability within the supply chain are explored the findings reveal that there are many challenges in integrating sustainability into scm these challenges shed light on possible future directions for research in sscm this article underlines the need for research that reflects the interconnected nature of the economic environmental and social dimensions of sustainability particularly as it relates to measuring supplier performance on sustainability initiatives

how do firms comply with international sustainability standards processes and consequences of adopting the global reporting initiative this paper addresses the issue of the influence of global governance institutions particularly international sustainability standards on a firm s intra organizational practices more precisely we provide an exploratory empirical view of the impact of the global reporting initiative gri on a multinational corporation s corporate social responsibility csr management practices we investigate standard compliance by comparing the stated intention of the use of the gri with its actual use and the consequent effects within the firm based on an in depth case study our findings illustrate the processes and consequences of the translation of the gri within the organization we show that substantive standard adoption can lead to unintended consequences on csr management practices specifically it can influence the management structure and csr committee function the choice of csr activities the relationships between subsidiaries the temporal dimension of csr management and the interpretation of csr performance we also highlight the need to look at the relationship dynamics or lack of between standards finally we illustrate and discuss the role of reporting and its influence on management in order to better understand the internal issues arising from compliance with standards

an evaluation of intraday trading and demand response for a predominantly hydro wind system under nordic market rules many countries are planning for a large scale expansion of wind power this development will have a significant impact on power system operation and economics one of the challenges is that the dif

economic assessment of the participation of wind generation in the secondary regulation market the aim of this paper is to analyze the profitability of wind technology as a potential participant in the frequency regulation specifically in the secondary regulation market the study is conducted for the spanish system using existing market rules however although this system has some peculiarities the main methodology could be applied in other systems firstly a bibliographical review of the relevant technical possibilities of this technology is carried out then a simulation study based on real data is conducted in order to evaluate the maximum possible incomes later a specific offer strategy is proposed and the income is estimated based on statistical modeling and checked by simulating its performance using the actual and forecasted productions of a wind portfolio it is concluded that under the current generation structure and regulatory framework in the spanish system the incomes obtained from the participation of wind technology would be modest however secondary regulation by wind generators might facilitate higher penetration levels of this technology in the long term with expected wind generation subsidies much reduced a greater need for regulation reserves and a possible increase in regulation prices regulation related incomes might become a sizeable fraction of the total income of wind generators

short term electricity trading for system balancing an empirical analysis of the role of intraday trading in balancing germany s electricity system abstract previous studies have noted that unexpectedly germany s dramatic expansion of wind and solar energy coincided with a reduction of short term balancing reserves this observation has been dubbed the german balancing paradox this paper provides further and updated evidence since 2011 wind and solar energy have nearly doubled while both reserve requirements and reserve use have declined by 50 the paper quantitatively explores one reason for reduced balancing needs increased and improved short term wholesale electricity trading on the intraday market trading is now commonly done around the clock and based on quarter hour rather than full hour contracts the shift to quarter hourly products alone explains a decrease in balancing energy by 17 there is also strong evidence that market parties respond efficiently to imbalance charges suggesting that incentive based approaches to electricity balancing work

trading wind generation from short term probabilistic forecasts of wind power due to the fluctuating nature of the wind resource a wind power producer participating in a liberalized electricity market is subject to penalties related to regulation costs accurate forecasts of wind generation are therefore paramount for reducing such penalties and thus maximizing revenue despite the fact that increasing accuracy in spot forecasts may reduce penalties this paper shows that if such forecasts are accompanied with information on their uncertainty i e in the form of predictive distributions then this can be the basis for defining advanced strategies for market participation such strategies permit to further increase revenues and thus enhance competitiveness of wind generation compared to other forms of dispatchable generation this paper formulates a general methodology for deriving optimal bidding strategies based on probabilistic forecasts of wind generation as well as on modeling of the sensitivity a wind power producer may have to regulation costs the benefits resulting from the application of these strategies are clearly demonstrated on the test case of the participation of a multi mw wind farm in the dutch electricity market over a year

the nordic approach to market based provision of ancillary services this paper presents an overview of the markets for ancillary services which are regulated and traded differently within and across borders in the nordic countries we describe the services provided and their characteristics in terms of definition participation contracting approach and duration selection of offers and dispatch criteria further we assess the costs specify the payments and discuss cost allocation and we conclude with a policy discussion of ancillary services in the nordic countries

an econometric analysis of willingness to pay for sustainable development a case study of the volcji potok landscape area abstract when the market for a certain good is competitive enough economic activities can be studied by the market pricing mechanism because this is usually not feasible in case of environmental goods with embodied natural and cultural heritage particular methods for economic valuation of such goods have to be applied the present article represents the economic valuation of the landscape development and protection area of volcji potok which is an important slovenian cultural landscape area with internationally recognized qualities for this purpose we combined classical contingent valuation with a closed version of discrete choice method where the protest responses have been removed by using econometric analysis we obtained the value of willingness to pay and established its determinants we also made an attempt to control for different biases that arise in such analyses at last we used the adjusted average individual value of willingness to pay to calculate the aggregate willingness to pay the present analysis represents one of the very few applications of the method to central and eastern european countries

a theoretical analysis of procurement auctions for tertiary control in germany as far as energy policy is concerned the design of the regulatory framework for energy transmission and distribution is a key issue consequently also the embodiment of balancing power markets drives mainly the effectiveness of political implications for the energy sector initially tertiary control in germany was solely offered by transmission system operators of the respective power control areas and their associated power plant the recast of the energy industry act of 2005 led in last consequence to a common procurement auction for the supply of tertiary control which starts on december 1 2006 admittedly the reform has fallen short of expectations so far first concerning the intensification of market entry of tertiary control providers as well as the desired decline of the price level hence this article examines the effects of the changeover on observable demand charges in order to identify attributes of the common procurement auction for tertiary control hampering market entry of providers giving stimuli to collusion and strategic behavior reducing intensity of competition and encouraging an upswing of prices we analyze the design under an auction theoretical approach and deduce empirically whether structural components of the auction design have to be touched up again

balancing power and variable renewables three links abstract balancing power is used to quickly restore the supply demand balance in power systems the need for this tends to be increased by the use of variable renewable energy sources vre such as wind and solar power this paper reviews three channels through which vre and balancing systems interact the impact of vre forecast errors on balancing reserve requirements the supply of balancing services by vre generators and the incentives to improve forecasting provided by imbalance charges the paper reviews the literature provides stylized facts from german market data and suggests policy options surprisingly while german wind and solar capacity has tripled since 2008 balancing reserves have been reduced by 15 and costs by 50

price volatility in commodity markets with restricted participation abstract in commodity markets price volatility may rise significantly if the product granularity increases to gain insights into the underlying drivers we analyze price volatility based on the example of german electricity markets we develop a theoretical model to reproduce the price formation in the day ahead and intraday auction which are sequential short term electricity markets with 60 minute and 15 minute products as cross border trade is allowed in the day ahead but not in the intraday auction the model accounts for the impact of restricted market participation the theoretical model is then transferred into an empirical analysis to first validate the modeling approach and second to comparatively assess the impact of increasing product granularity and restricted market participation the empirical results indicate that the disproportional rise in quarter hourly price volatility is mainly triggered by limited market participation and not only by the high volatility of renewable supply and demand since restricted market participation refers to a lack of market coupling we derive a proxy for efficiency losses ranging from eur 55 million to eur 108 million that may be reduced if markets are coupled

the market value of variable renewables the effect of solar wind power variability on their relative price this paper provides a comprehensive discussion of the market value of variable renewable energy vre the inherent variability of wind speeds and solar radiation affects the price that vre generators receive on the market market value during windy and sunny times the additional electricity supply reduces the prices because the drop is larger with more installed capacity the market value of vre falls with higher penetration rate this study aims to develop a better understanding on how the market value with penetration and how policies and prices affect the market value quantitative evidence is derived from a review of published studies regression analysis of market data and the calibrated model of the european electricity market emma we find the value of wind power to fall from 110 of the average power price to 50 80 as wind penetration increases from zero to 30 of total electricity consumption for solar power similarly low value levels are reached already at 15 penetration hence competitive large scale renewable deployment will be more difficult to accomplish than as many anticipate

economic assessment of virtual power plants in the german energy market a scenario based and model supported analysis abstract the energy transition energiewende in germany will result in a substantial transformation of the energy supply system virtual power plants are expected to be important components of the new intelligent energy infrastructure they aggregate beside different types of distributed generation units also active consumers and storage technologies in order to integrate these in a profit maximising system stabilising and sustainable way the assessment of the economic performance of virtual power plants requires a scenario based and model supported analysis in this relation future energy market conditions are simulated using the scenario methodology starting from the year 2015 three scenarios have been identified that illustrate alternative energy developments in germany by 2030 based on these scenarios the additional revenues potential of the modeled virtual power plant is identified when compared to an independent and non market oriented operation mode of distributed energy resources according to the model results revenues of the vpp can increase by 11 up to 30 in the analyzed scenarios in 2030 due to the market oriented operation mode nevertheless the amount and composition vary depending on technology specific subsidies temporary nature of power demand and price structures in the energy market fluctuating renewable energies are expected to benefit from the market oriented operation mode in the virtual power plant especially through the eeg direct marketing the selective and regulated shutdown of renewable energies in times of negative electricity prices may lead to further cost savings the utilization of temporary price fluctuations in the spot market and the demand oriented provision of control power offer high additional revenue potential for flexible controllable technologies such as battery storage biomethane as well as combined heat and power units finally the determination of the long term profitability of a virtual power plant still requires a full scale cost benefit analysis for this holistic approach the model results provide a reliable scientific basis

efficient estimation methods for closed ended contingent valuation surveys closed ended contingent valuation surveys can be very useful in the evaluation of nonmarket resources respondents merely state whether they would accept or reject a hypothetical threshold amount either as payment for giving up access to the resource or as a fee for its use the authors develop a maximum likelihood procedure which exploits the variation in the threshold values to allow direct and separate point estimates of regression like slope coefficients and error standard deviations without truncation bias their illustration uses data from a survey of recreational fisherman to examine factors which influence individuals willingness to pay copyright 1987 by mit press

environmental reporting in the spanish wind energy sector an institutional view abstract the aim of this paper is to explore the relevance of institutional influences on corporate environmental reporting practices the wind energy sector in spain was chosen for analysis because of its rapid growth and significant impact on moves towards cleaner energy production a content analysis of recent sustainability reports 2005 2009 from seven main wind energy companies facilitated a longitudinal comparison of the levels of compliance with global reporting initiative indicators of sustainability results show that initial institutional pressures for reporting have been replaced by imitation by companies of each other s practices leading to a reduction in the differences between environmental disclosures results confirm the importance of examining different institutional pressures on disclosure practices to development of policy however a key finding is that the disclosures have been minimal and their lack of effectiveness and unreliability mean they are not conducive to the notion of increasing transparency in the wind generated clean energy electricity sector as a result the credibility of relying on a voluntary sustainability standard such as the global reporting initiative gri as an incentive for informative environmental reporting is challenged

estimating the demand curve for sustainable use of pesticides from contingent valuation data abstract stated preference valuation techniques are often used to assess consumers willingness to pay for food items produced in farming systems that adopt a sustainable use of pesticides sup we propose an innovative valuation methodology in which dichotomous choice contingent valuation is used to estimate the demand curve price quantity relationship for such food items where price means price premium for the sup output quantity is the probability of choosing sup and the conventional food product is kept available in the market at the current market price this methodology can be used to evaluate market differentiation as a policy option to promote the sup the methodology is tested with data from a sample of urban consumers of fruits and vegetables in portugal the estimated demand curve is used to define the price level maximizing the total premium revenue for the sup sector as a whole this optimal level of the price premium is 77 55 or 163 of the value of the monthly basket of fruits and vegetables at current prices adopting the optimal price premium will decrease the number of consumers of sup food by 54 the reduction is even higher for low income consumers 80 leaving them more exposed to the risks of pesticide use

corporate sustainability ratings an investigation into how corporations use the dow jones sustainability index abstract the purpose of this paper is to explore the use of the dow jones sustainability index djsi with an emphasis on canadian corporations the paper provides insight into the use of the djsi in several areas including the use of its logo the steps taken by corporations to achieve initial acceptance to the index and the steps corporations take to maintain their inclusion in the djsi a content analysis of publicly available information from 24 canadian corporations listed in the djsi north america djsina showed that less than half of those sampled used the djsi logo in their sustainability reports or on their websites the majority of the published references to the djsi were in highlighting corporate achievements or in providing background information on the index a survey of 10 experts from the canadian corporations listed in the djsina revealed a wide range of strategies for gaining and maintaining inclusion in the index particularly involving a large number of internal stakeholders in responding to data requests and working with third parties several suggestions for improving the djsi were also provided including streamlining the questionnaire improving coordination among sustainability ratings agencies and enhancing transparency

when renewable portfolio standards meet cap and trade regulations in the electricity sector market interactions profits implications and policy redundancy emission trading programs c t and renewable portfolio standards rps are two common tools used by policymakers to control ghg emissions in the energy and other energy intensive sectors little is known however as to the policy implications resulting from these concurrent regulations especially given that their underlying policy goals and regulatory schemes are distinct this paper applies both an analytical model and a computational model to examine the short run implications of market interactions and policy redundancy the analytical model is used to generate contestable hypotheses while the numerical model is applied to consider more realistic market conditions we have two central findings first lowering the co2 c t cap might penalize renewable units and increasing the rps level could sometimes benefit coal and oil and make natural gas units worse off second making one policy more stringent would weaken the market incentive which the other policy relies upon to attain its intended policy target

exploring the transition to integrated reporting through a practice lens an australian customer owned bank perspective this article explores the transition to integrated reporting by a customer owned bank referred to as goodbank and identifies the drivers of this transition thereby providing insights for other businesses seeking to engage in such reporting practice theory provides a theoretical lens for this study a case study approach encompassing in depth interviews and documents analysis enabled the data to be collected for this research this study finds that a customer owned business context enables innovative approaches to reporting an understanding of reporting and recognition of the potential value of integrated reporting basic guidelines for such a practice and organisational ethical values and goals based on a combination of economic social and environmental considerations matched by an organisational structure that embeds economic social and environmental responsibilities rather than treating these as separate silos enabled goodbank to transition to integrated reporting and differentiate itself from its competitors and other organisations

costing an international public good the case of the baltic sea abstract the paper discusses an economically efficient and internationally equitable provision of a specific public good the good in question the baltic sea satisfies a number of needs but economic values implied may be different in various countries polluting and using the sea the level of eutrophication has been identified as a key characteristic of the baltic sea relevant for its value the chander tulkens model of cost sharing is used to determine a hypothetical allocation of abatement costs across the countries around the sea the application of the model is based on estimates of national abatement costs as well as national willingness to pay for reduced eutrophication estimating willingness to pay in a collection of countries some of which undergo a transition from centrally planned systems has been the main challenge of this study the results were derived from a coordinated series of contingent valuation surveys in lithuania poland and sweden combined with benefit transfer studies to cover the rest of the region predictions of cost sharing schemes obtained from the chander tulkens model are confronted with actual data on abatement expenditures and international assistance several recommendations on how to optimize the baltic wide programmes conclude the paper