a short run solution to the power crisis of pakistan abstract pakistan is in a deep power crisis since 2008 which the government is trying to control by adding new generation capacity this strategy however will not be helpful in the short run the only way the power crisis can be controlled or mitigated in the short run is to efficiently utilize the available resources government lacks such a strategy at this point the paper provides such a strategy by setting up a power sector model with multiple modules of generation transmission and distribution the model provides an efficient way of utilizing the available resources and can be used to perform simulations at different stages of the supply chain the results of model show that if the given resources are utilized efficiently the power generation increases by 3222 gwh or 5 percent of the current output and the revenue increases by 945 million or 12 percent the extra generated power decrease the cost of power production by 0 52 kwh cents and reduces the power load shedding for 2 3 h these outcomes can significantly relieve the sector and the people of pakistan the results of the model have important policy implications on working of the sector and circular debt reduction

techno economic analysis and environmental impact assessment of a 10 mw biomass based power plant in malaysia abstract considering that renewable energy is the primary energy source in the future this study investigates biomass power for sustainable and secure energy supply biomass fuels in malaysia include empty fruit bunch mesocarp fiber palm kernel shell oil palm frond oil palm trunk from palm oil plantation and woody biomass from forests the moisture content and heating value of palm oil based biomass fuels are analyzed relative to their cost savings in a 10 mw biomass power plant the net present value internal rate of return and payback period for various finance options and at various system efficiencies are also presented results indicate that for an empty fruit bunch priced at myr 20 t without loan the net present values are myr 45 31 million myr 54 32 million and myr 57 74 million with 20 30 and 40 system efficiencies respectively the internal rates of returns are 21 88 22 and 21 11 respectively and the payback periods are 4 16 4 20 and 4 22 y respectively the 10 mw plant releases 50 130 t less co 2 750 t less so 2 218 65 t less nox and 22 83 t less co emissions in the environment compared with the existing energy mix

accounting for external costs in a study of a swedish district heating system an assessment of environmental policies sweden has historically had strict emission control by implementation of economic policy instruments with the aim of internalising the external costs of air pollution this study aims to evaluate how well current swedish policy instruments reflect the environmental costs associated with heat generation in several district heating dh plants in the dh system of goteborg furthermore it aims to simulate and evaluate the operation of the dh system based on its social cost effectiveness which takes into account the dh system s private and external costs non internalised environmental costs the study shows that the economic policy instruments do not fully internalise all external costs whereas for certain technologies the costs in terms of taxes emission permits environmental fees etc are higher than the environmental costs caused by the pollutants given the environmental cost estimates used in the study the simulation results show that the deviating internalisation of external costs affects the economic ranking of the different plants within the studied dh system the estimated loss in social cost effectiveness of the operation of the dh system of goteborg is noticable but relatively small if compared to the variable heat generation costs for most of the studied dh plants c 2010 elsevier ltd all rights reserved

wind power price trends in the united states struggling to remain competitive in the face of strong growth the amount of wind power capacity being installed globally is surging with the united states the world leader in terms of annual market share for three years running 2005 2007 the rapidly growing market for wind has been a double edged sword however as the resulting supply demand imbalance in wind turbines along with the rising cost of materials and weakness in the u s dollar has put upward pressure on wind turbine costs and ultimately wind power prices two mitigating factors reductions in the cost of equity provided to wind projects and improvements in project level capacity factors have helped to relieve some of the upward pressure on wind power prices over the last few years because neither of these two factors can be relied upon to further cushion the blow going forward policymakers should recognize that continued financial support may be necessary to sustain the wind sector at its current pace of development at least in the near term though this article emphasizes developments in the u s market for wind power those trends are similar to and hold implications for the worldwide wind power market

stochastic modeling of financial electricity contracts abstract we discuss the modeling of electricity contracts traded in many deregulated power markets these forward futures type contracts deliver either physically or financially electricity over a specified time period and is frequently referred to as swaps since they in effect represent an exchange of fixed for floating electricity price we propose to use the heath jarrow morton approach to model swap prices since the notion of a spot price is not easily defined in these markets for general stochastic dynamical models we connect the spot price the instantaneous delivery forward price and the swap price and analyze two different ways to apply the heath jarrow morton approach to swap pricing either one specifies a dynamics for the non existing instantaneous delivery forwards and derives the implied swap dynamics or one models directly on the swaps the former is shown to lead to quite complicated stochastic models for the swap price even when the forward dynamics is simple the latter has some theoretical problems due to a no arbitrage condition that has to be satisfied for swaps with overlapping delivery periods to overcome this problem a practical modeling approach is analyzed the market is supposed only to consist of non overlapping swaps and these are modelled directly a thorough empirical study is performed using data collected from nord pool our investigations demonstrate that it is possible to state reasonable models for the swap price dynamics which is analytically tractable for risk management and option pricing purposes however this is an area of further research

evidence of nonlinearity in daily stock returns this article applies a newly developed statistical technique to time series of daily rates of return of 15 common stocks the technique involves estimating the bispectrum of the observed time series the bispectrum is defined as the double fourier transform of the third order cumulant function if the process generating rates of return is linear with independent innovations then the skewness of the bispectrum will be constant the article describes a test that can detect nonconstant skewness in the bispectrum hence if the test rejects constant skewness a nonlinear process is implied as a consequence the test can distinguish between white noise and purely random noise the results suggest that daily stock returns are generated by a nonlinear process

long run trends in energy related external costs this paper considers how energy related external costs change through time it focuses on one of the key periods in the history of energy after a period of declining coal prices and soaring consumption which fuelled the second industrial revolution the nineteenth century british economy was externalising the social costs of energy production and consumption on a massive scale rising from 25 in the 1820s an estimated 60 70 of the average social costs of coal were externalised in the 1880s imposing damages close to 20 of gdp the eventual decline in air pollution concentration around 1900 occurred fifty years later than was broadly socially optimal this experience highlights the evolution of the demand for and supply of environmental quality in the context of economic growth and the nature of related market and government failures implying the necessity for adaptation rather than encouraging mitigation this experience may offer lessons for climate analysis and policy making

performance evaluation of renewable energy support policies applied on flanders tradable certificates system abstract the article is composed as a diptych first a general framework of criteria to evaluate the performance of renewable energy support systems is elaborated it is built around the main criteria effectiveness efficiency and equity all three are multi layered and specifying the contents of the various layers is case dependent second the framework is applied on detailed data about the flemish tradable certificates support system several salient conclusions confirm observations from research in other countries causing growing awareness first most crucial is a careful and detailed qualification of renewable energy sources and technologies without even effectiveness is not reliably measurable second nearby targets of renewable energy output must follow from a clearly designed transition trajectory towards a sustainable electricity sector such transition is intertwined with an industrial technological policy for bringing the necessary technologies to development and maturity third if the above two prerequisites are overridden certificates systems abound of excess profits predominantly reaped by incumbent power companies being not the best agents of real change to a sustainable energy future

pricing environmental externalities in the power sector ethical limits and implications for social choice abstract during the last decade a series of valuation studies have made attempts at estimating the external environmental costs of various power generation sources the purposes of this paper are a to explore some of the ethical limits of the economic valuation of environmental impacts and b to analyze what the implications are of these limits for the social choice between different electric power sources environmental valuation based on welfare economic theory builds on restrictive behavioral foundations and can only partly model moral values although such values are an essential part of people s preference towards the environment in addition public preferences are seldom exogenously given as is commonly assumed in economic theory but are instead formed in public discourse for this reason the range of electricity externalities where economic valuation and thus cost benefit analysis should be applied is likely to be narrower than often assumed after analyzing the scope methodology and the results of the so called externe project the paper concludes that many power generation externalities are either inherently new or inherently complex in these cases the initial challenge lies not in discovering private preferences but in specifying the conditions for public discourse over common ways of understanding what the pertinent issues are about this implies that research on the environmental externalities of power generation must in addition to refining the theory and the applications of existing non market valuation techniques also address the instruments and content of political and moral debate

modeling long term dynamics of electricity markets in the last decade many countries have restructured their electricity industries by introducing competition in their power generation sectors although some restructuring has been regarded as successful the short experience accumulated with liberalized power markets does not allow making any founded assertion about their long term behavior long term prices and long term supply reliability are now center of interest this concerns firms considering investments in generation capacity and regulatory authorities interested in assuring the long term supply adequacy and the stability of power markets in order to gain significant insight into the long term behavior of liberalized power markets in this paper a simulation model based on system dynamics is proposed and the underlying mathematical formulations extensively discussed unlike classical market models based on the assumption that market outcomes replicate the results of a centrally made optimization the approach presented here focuses on replicating the system structure of power markets and the logic of relationships among system components in order to derive its dynamical response the simulations suggest that there might be serious problems to adjust early enough the generation capacity necessary to maintain stable reserve margins and consequently stable long term price levels because of feedback loops embedded in the structure of power markets and the existence of some time lags the long term market development might exhibit a quite volatile behavior by varying some exogenous inputs a sensitivity analysis is carried out to assess the influence of these factors on the long run market dynamics

a review on global wind energy policy with the increasing negative effects of fossil fuel combustion on the environment in addition to limited stock of fossil fuel have forced many countries to inquire into and change to environmentally friendly alternatives that are renewable to sustain the increasing energy demand energy policy plays a vital role to mitigate the impacts of global warming and crisis of energy availability this paper explores the wind energy industry from the point of view of the wind energy policy it is noticed that energy policy could help increasing wind power generation as well as stimulating the energy industry it may be stated that without specific energy policy a country would not be able to solve the acute problems like reducing greenhouse gases ghgs emission scarcity of energy etc this paper discussed the existing successful energy policies for few selected countries based on literatures it has been found that fit rps incentives pricing law and quota system are the most useful energy policies practiced by many countries around the world then status of wind energy policy for malaysia was investigated and compared with few selected countries around the world

electricity demand analysis using cointegration and arima modelling a case study of turkey in the early 2000s the republic of turkey has initiated an ambitious reform program in her electricity market which requires privatization liberalization as well as a radical restructuring the most controversial reason behind or justification for recent reforms has been the rapid electricity demand growth that is to say the whole reform process has been a part of the endeavors to avoid the so called energy crisis using cointegration analysis and autoregressive integrated moving average arima modelling the present article focuses on this issue by both providing an electricity demand estimation and forecast and comparing the results with official projections the study concludes first that consumers respond to price and income changes is quite limited and therefore there is a need for economic regulation in turkish electricity market and second that the current official electricity demand projections highly overestimate the electricity demand which may endanger the development of both a coherent energy policy in general and a healthy electricity market in particular

an economic perspective on experience curves and dynamic economies in renewable energy technologies this paper analyzes dynamic economies in renewable energy technologies the paper has two contributions the first is to test the robustness of experience in solar photovoltaic solar thermal and wind energy to the addition of an explicit time trend which has been done in experience studies for other industries but not for renewable energy technologies estimation is carried out on the assumption that cumulative capacity industry production average firm production and electricity generation affect experience and thus the fall in price the second contribution is to test the impact of r d on price reduction in general cumulative experience is found to be highly statistically significant when estimated alone and highly statistically insignificant when time is added to the model the effect of r d is small and statistically significant in solar photovoltaic technology and statistically insignificant in solar thermal and wind technologies

small distributed generation versus centralised supply a social cost benefit analysis in the residential and service sectors abstract this paper aims at measuring the social benefits of small chp distributed generation dg in the residential and service sectors we do this by comparing the social costs of decentralised and centralised supplies simulating ideal situations in which any source of allocative inefficiencies is eliminated this comparison focuses on assessing internal and external costs the internal costs are calculated by simulating the optimal prices of the electricity and gas inputs the external costs are estimated by using and elaborating the results of the dissemination process of the externe project one of the most recent and accurate methodologies in this field the analysis takes into account the main sources of uncertainty about the parameter values including uncertainty about external cost estimations despite these sources of uncertainty the paper concludes that centralised supply is still preferable to small dg in fact the overall range of dg social competitiveness is restricted even considering further remarkable improvements in dg electrical efficiency and investment costs the results are particularly unfavourable for the residential sector whereas in the service sector the performance of dg technologies is slightly better

technological learning and renewable energy costs implications for us renewable energy policy abstract this paper analyzes the relationship between current renewable energy technology costs and cumulative production research development and demonstration expenditures and other institutional influences combining the theoretical framework of learning by doing and developments in learning by searching with the fields of organizational learning and institutional economics offers a complete methodological framework to examine the underlying capital cost trajectory when developing electricity cost estimates used in energy policy planning models sensitivities of the learning rates for global wind and solar photovoltaic technologies to changes in the model parameters are tested the implications of the results indicate that institutional policy instruments play an important role for these technologies to achieve cost reductions and further market adoption

oil and the macroeconomy since world war ii all but one of the u s recessions since world war ii have been preceded typically with a lag of around three fourths of a year by a dramatic increase in the price of crude petroleum this does not mean that oil shocks caused these recessions evidence is presented however that even over the period 1948 72 this correlation is statistically significant and nonspurious supporting the proposition that oil shocks were a contributing factor in at least some of the u s recessions prior to 1972 by extension energy price increases may account for much of post opec macroeconomic performance

imperfect competition and the effects of energy price increases on economic activity the authors show that modifying the standard neoclassical growth model by assuming that competition is imperfect makes it easier to explain the size of the declines in output and real wages that follow increases in the price of oil plausibly parameterized models of this type are able to mimic the response of output and real wages in the united states the responses are particularly consistent with a model of implicit collusion where markups depend positively on the ratio of the expected present value of future profits to the current level of output copyright 1996 by ohio state university press

agribusiness economics and management agribusiness scholarship emphasizes an integrated view of the food system that extends from research and input supply through production processing and distribution to retail outlets and the consumer this article traces development of agribusiness scholarship over the past century by describing nine

external cost of coal based electricity generation a tale of ahmedabad city abstract electricity production causes unintended impacts their exclusion by the market leads to suboptimal resource allocations monetizing and internalizing of external costs though challenging and debatable leads to a better allocation of economic resources and welfare in this paper a life cycle analysis lca on the production of electricity from conventional coal based electricity generation system has been performed in order to examine the environmental impacts of coal based electricity generating systems in the twin city of ahmedabad and gandhinagar in western india by using dose response functions we make an attempt to estimate the damages to human health crops and building materials resulting from the operation of coal power plants and its associated mines further we use geographic information system to account for spatially dependent data finally monetary values have been assigned to estimate the damage to human health crops and building materials this study reveals that the health as well as on non health impacts of air pollution resulting from coal based electricity generation may not be ignored both in absolute as well as economic value terms

imperfect competition in agricultural markets and the role of cooperatives a spatial analysis important characteristics of many agricultural markets are costly to transport raw products and relatively few processors one or more of which is often a cooperative this paper analyzes pricing behavior in these oligopsonistic spatial markets and focuses specifically upon the conjecture that cooperatives may have a procompetitive effect on the behavior of rival non co op processors the existence and magnitude of a procompetitive effect is shown to depend upon a number of structural and strategic factors including competitive relations among the non co op processors and a cooperative s membership and pricing policies

energy sector pricing on the role of neglected nonlinearity modern economies have been subjected to a number of shocks during the past several years such as the burst of the internet bubble terrorist attacks corporate scandals the war in iraq the uncertainty about energy prices and the recent subprime mortgage crisis in particular during the last few years the energy shock has caused concerns for potential stagflation for both the united states and numerous other countries we perform numerous univariate tests for non linearity and chaotic structure using price data from the energy sector to resolve whether the sector s fundamentals or exogenous shocks drive these prices

american policy conflict in the greenhouse divergent trends in federal regional state and local green energy and climate change policy climate change threatens significant impacts on global ecosystems and human populations to address this challenge industrialized nations have ratified the kyoto protocol and undertaken commitments to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases the primary agents linked to anthropogenic alteration of earth s climate by contrast the us government led by the bush administration has rejected mandatory targets for curbing emissions under the protocol and has instead pursued voluntary mitigation measures amid a larger push for clean coal and next generation nuclear technologies these actions in total have fueled global perceptions that the us is not acting in substantial ways to address climate change nevertheless action within the us is indeed moving forward with states cities and regional partnerships filling the federal leadership vacuum this paper reviews the diverse policies strategies and cooperative frameworks that have emerged at regional state and local levels to guide climate protection and identifies the environmental and economic benefits linked to such programs the paper also attempts to explain the existing federal impasse on climate policy with attention given to how sub national efforts may ultimately obviate national governmental inaction r 2007 elsevier ltd all rights reserved

agroindustrialization of the global agrifood economy bridging development economics and agribusiness research this paper examines the agroindustrialization process from two supposedly disparate views development economics and agribusiness research the evolution of conceptual and methodological approaches emanating from these fields is explored and general observations are made concerning farm economic interdependence institutional and organizational change differing scopes of interest the causes of agroindustrialization orientation and the choice of microanalytic tools terminology and unit of analysis despite an impressive list of hurdles disincentives and disconnects complementarities between the two fields are identified the paper concludes by exploring the potential of bridging development economics and agribusiness research to inform the future agroindustrialization research agenda

squaring the sunny circle on balancing distributive justice of power grid costs and incentives for solar prosumers abstract solar prosumers are about to revolutionize the power sector utilities are challenged in recovering the costs of distribution grids as parts of their revenue basis decreases through self consumption adjusting the grid tariff sets off a reinforcing feedback loop that increases the attractiveness of solar investments but also leads to a distribution effect between solar prosumers and conventional consumers the question is how to recover distribution grid costs equitable without hampering the diffusion of solar power can the two criteria be fulfilled at the same time or is do we aim for squaring a circle to address this question i present a system dynamics simulation model designed to understand the interactions and assess these competing goals the occurring distribution effect under the volumetric grid tariff with net purchase and sale appears to be rather limited simulation experiments reveal that grid tariff designs strongly influence investments for solar power a capacity tariff can reduce deviations from the cost causation principle of solar prosumers and incentivizes investments in decentralized storage solutions to reduce peak demand nevertheless also the capacity tariff causes a distribution effect

social choice uncertainty about external costs and trade off between intergenerational environmental impacts the emblematic case of gas based energy supply decentralization abstract the performance of the small natural gas fired power technologies has improved remarkably over the last decade this has aroused the interest of operators regulators and legislators in natural gas fired distributed generation gas fired dg namely the integrated or stand alone use of small modular gas fired power generation close to the point of consumption as an alternative to large power generation and electricity transport over long distances gas fired dg can provide an important benefit from the environmental point of view customer proximity in fact greatly increases the potential for combined heat and power generation involving energy saving and reduced greenhouse gas ghg emissions unfortunately this kind of decentralized supply also determines higher non ghg emissions mainly nox compared to the best available central power technology which occur in urban areas high populated instead of extra urban areas where large power plants are generally located it is therefore difficult to make a reliable evaluation of gas fired dg environmental benefits without comparing centralized and decentralized models in terms of external costs that is without an analysis which allows us to compare the extent of global and local regional impacts in terms of monetary damage if on the one hand this underlines the potential importance of the methods adopted to assess the economic value of environmental externalities even for policy decisions that are binary i e the choice between different energy technologies on the other it raises the crucial question of the uncertainty about the economic estimates this article aims at demonstrating that the uncertainty about external costs even if large does not undermine the possibility of verifying whether gas fired dg is preferable or not to centralized supply the paper compares centralized and decentralized models in terms of the external environmental costs which are calculated by using the results of the available studies in this field in particular the results of the dissemination process of the so called externe project one of the most recent and accurate methodologies and the results of a meta analysis with regard to the marginal cost of ghg emissions the uncertainty about external costs is substantial but not so large that it is not possible to say anything about the environmental raking of alternative technology solutions involving trade off between the impacts of different pollutants or between different kinds of impacts the literature on external costs provides several studies accounting for a large part of uncertainty by means of appropriate statistical and sensitive analysis by using and elaborating these results the analysis described in this paper seems to support the conclusion that centralized supply and especially the completely electric solution based on the reversible electric heat pump is still preferable to natural gas fired chp distributed generation this is not a definitive conclusion but we hope a useful scientific based contribution for policy decisions under the state of the art in fact this result has an interesting policy implication it suggests unless questioning the current enthusiasm on natural gas fired chp distributed generation deployment e g the european commission is indeed advocating dg as a contribution to ghg emission reduction and helps us to reflect upon gas fired dg supporting environmental policies which focus on the reduction of ghg emissions and totally disregard the possible trade off between the impacts of global and local regional pollutants unless one denies the rationality attributed to making tradeoffs on the basis of ethical limits of economic valuations even in this case however cost benefit analysis seems to be legitimate and a necessary step of the public discourse we think that the results of this paper are emblematic from this point of view

tax incentives to promote green electricity an overview of eu 27 countries this paper provides a comprehensive overview of the main tax incentives used in the eu 27 member states mss to promote green electricity sixteen mss use tax incentives to promote green electricity simultaneously with other promotion measures especially quota obligations and price regulation however not all available technologies are promoted for example six mss germany romania slovak republic denmark sweden and poland have included an exemption on the payments of excise duties for electricity when the electricity is generated from renewable energy sources res this tax incentive is the most widely used limited tax incentives in personal income tax are available in belgium france czech republic and luxembourg in corporate tax tax incentives consist mainly of a deduction in the taxable profit belgium greece czech republic and spain lower tax rates in vat are applied in three mss france italy and portugal only spain and italy use effective tax incentives in property tax as a great diversity of tax incentives has been used to promote green electricity this adds another difficulty to the eu objective of providing a renewable energy policy framework but also it offers a useful set of case studies which can be used to inform eu policy development

measuring productive efficiency in multiple product agribusiness firms a dual approach measuring retail fertilizer plant efficiency is difficult given the range of outputs produced by these multiple product firms a frontier multiproduct cost function was employed to measure productive efficiency results suggest the average plant could lower variable costs by 10 through more effective operations allocative inefficiency was minimal indicating management should focus on improving technical efficiency the limitations of employing a single product model in a multiproduct situation are demonstrated

ex post analysis of economic impacts from wind power development in u s counties wind power development has surged in recent years in the united states policymakers and economic development practitioners to date have typically relied upon project level case studies or modeled input output estimates to assess the economic development impacts from wind power often focusing on potential local state wide or national employment or earnings impacts building on this literature we conduct an ex post econometric analysis of the county level economic development impacts of wind power installations from 2000 through 2008 in a large wind rich region in the country taking into account factors influencing wind turbine location we find an aggregate increase in county level personal income and employment of approximately 11 000 and 0 5 jobs per megawatt of wind power capacity installed over the sample period of 2000 to 2008 these estimates appear broadly consistent with modeled input output results and translate to a median increase in total county personal income and employment of 0 2 and 0 4 for counties with installed wind power over the same period

internalisation of external costs in the polish power generation sector a partial equilibrium model this paper presents a methodical framework which is the basis for the economic analysis of the mid term planning of development of the polish energy system the description of the partial equilibrium model and its results are demonstrated for different scenarios applied the model predicts the generation investment and pricing of mid term decisions that refer to the polish electricity and heat markets the current structure of the polish energy sector is characterised by interactions between the supply and demand sides of the energy sector the supply side regards possibilities to deliver fuels from domestic and import sources and their conversion through transformation processes public power plants public chp plants industry chp plants and municipal heat plants represent the main producers of energy in poland demand is characterised by the major energy consumers i e industry and construction transport agriculture trade and services individual consumers and export the relationships between the domestic electricity and heat markets are modelled taking into account external costs estimates the volume and structure of energy production electricity and heat prices emissions external costs and social welfare of different scenarios are presented results of the model demonstrate that the internalisation of external costs through the increase in energy prices implies significant improvement in social welfare

progress and challenges in utilization of palm oil biomass as fuel for decentralized electricity generation it has been broadly accepted worldwide that global warming indeed is the greatest threat of the time to the environment renewable energy re is expected as a perfect solution to reduce global warming and to endorse sustainable development progressive release of greenhouse gases ghg from increasing energy intensive industries has eventually caused human civilization to suffer realizing the exigency of reducing emissions and simultaneously catering to needs of industries researchers foresee the re as the perfect entrant to overcome these challenges re provides an effective option for the provision of energy services from the technical point of view while biomass a major source of energy in the world until before industrialization when fossil fuels become dominant appears an important renewable source of energy and researches have proven from time to time its viability for large scale production being a widely spread source biomass offers the execution of decentralized electricity generation gaining importance in liberalized electricity markets the decentralized power is characterized by generation of electricity nearer to the demand centers meeting the local energy needs researchers envisaged an increasing decentralization of power supply expected to make a particular contribution to climate protection this article investigates the progress and challenges for decentralized electricity generation by palm oil biomass according to the overall concept of sustainable development

an integrated ant colony optimization approach to compare strategies of clearing market in electricity markets agent based simulation in this paper an innovative model of agent based simulation based on ant colony optimization aco algorithm is proposed in order to compare three available strategies of clearing wholesale electricity markets i e uniform pay as bid and generalized vickrey rules the supply side actors of the power market are modeled as adaptive agents who learn how to bid strategically to optimize their profit through indirect interaction with other actors of the market the proposed model is proper for bidding functions with high number of dimensions and enables modelers to avoid curse of dimensionality as dimension grows test systems are then used to study the behavior of each pricing rule under different degrees of competition and heterogeneity finally the pricing rules are comprehensively compared using different economic criteria such as average cleared price efficiency of allocation and price volatility also principle component analysis pca is used to rank and select the best price rule to the knowledge of the authors this is the first study that uses aco for assessing strategies of wholesale electricity market

sustainability assessment of electricity production using a logic models approach the topic sustainable development has brought a wide discussion across a number of sectors in our society namely in power systems given the need to address other concerns than the economic ones decision makers must take into account the rationale that lies beneath strategic choices such as investing in generation technologies using renewable energy or rather doing business as usual and installing fossil fuel power plants in this paper logic models were used as a decision aid supporting tool with the aim of contributing to the assessment of the possible impacts of different power plants in terms of sustainable development the analyzed electricity generation technologies were grouped in thermal renewable energy sources ress and nuclear the literature review fed the construction of three relational diagrams to allow the visualization of environmental social and economic causes and effects of the three groups of technologies departing from these initial diagrams a set of interviews with experts was conducted to enrich and validate the logic models the results of the literature review and of these interviews allowed to conclude that the use of res has wider positive social impacts on the long run despite their short term higher costs compared to the traditional groups nuclear and thermal these logic models revealed to be a useful tool providing a valuable starting approach for an impact assessment of the ongoing change that power systems have been going through

policies and market factors driving wind power development in the united states abstract in the united states there has been substantial recent growth in wind energy generating capacity with growth averaging 24 percent annually during the past five years about 1700 mw of wind energy capacity was installed in 2001 while another 410 mw became operational in 2002 during 2003 development activity has remained strong with an estimated 1600 mw of capacity installed with this growth an increasing number of states are experiencing investment in wind energy projects currently about half of all states host at least one wind power project this paper explores the key factors at play in the 12 states in which a substantial amount of wind energy capacity has been developed or planned some of the factors that are examined include policy drivers such as renewable portfolio standards rps federal and state financial incentives as well as market drivers such as consumer demand for green power natural gas price volatility and wholesale market rules

long term climate policy implications of phasing out fossil fuel subsidies abstract it is often argued that fossil fuel subsidies hamper the transition towards a sustainable energy supply as they incentivize wasteful consumption we assess implications of a subsidy phase out for the mitigation of climate change and the low carbon transformation of the energy system using the global energy economy model remind we compare our results with those obtained by the international energy agency based on the world energy model and by the organization for economic co operation and development oecd model env linkages providing the long term perspective of an intertemporal optimization model the results are analyzed in the two dimensions of subsidy phase out and climate policy scenarios we confirm short term benefits of phasing out fossil fuel subsidies as found in prior studies however these benefits are only sustained to a small extent in the long term if dedicated climate policies are weak or nonexistent most remarkably we find that a removal of fossil fuel subsidies if not complemented by other policies can slow down a global transition towards a renewable based energy system the reason is that world market prices for fossil fuels may drop due to a removal of subsidies thus low carbon alternatives would encounter comparative disadvantages

multiobjective optimization for pricing system security in electricity markets this paper proposes a novel technique for representing system security in the operations of decentralized electricity markets with special emphasis on voltage stability an interior point method is used to solve the optimal power flow problem with a multiobjective function for maximizing both social benefit and the distance to maximum loading conditions a six bus system with both supply and demand side bidding is used to illustrate the proposed technique for both elastic and inelastic demand and a 129 bus test system that models the italian hv transmission network is used for testing the practical applicability of the proposed method the results obtained show that the proposed technique is able to improve system security while yielding better market conditions through increased transaction levels and improved locational marginal prices throughout the system

multi criteria analysis of electricity generation mix scenarios in tunisia abstract the diversification of the national electricity generation mix has risen to the top of tunisia s energy planning agenda presently natural gas provides 96 of the primary energy for electric power generation but declining domestic gas reserves and a soaring electricity demand are urgently calling for alternative fuel strategies currently discussed diversification options include the introduction of coal and nuclear power plants and or an increased use of renewable energies this article presents a methodology to assess different electricity system transformation strategies by combining an electricity market model with a subsequent multi criteria decision analysis mcda we evaluate five power mix scenarios regarding power generation costs as well as non economic dimensions such as energy security environmental impact and social welfare effects based on criteria valuations obtained during consultations with tunisian stakeholders a final best ranking electricity scenario was selected consisting of 15 wind 15 solar and 70 natural gas generated electricity in the national power mix by 2030

broiler production contracts as a multi agent problem common risk incentives and heterogeneity the broiler industry presents two puzzles regarding production contracts why do processors control growers inputs and why do they use a statistically insufficient estimator to calculate growers compensation this paper provides an agency theoretic framework that explains these puzzles in terms of processors response to grower heterogeneity and production risk and to grower risk aversion processors control inputs to reduce the information rents paid to agents by forcing agents to bear additional income risk through the use of an imprecise estimator processors can increase profits due to the combined moral hazard adverse selection nature of the informational problem

external costs of energy do the answers match the questions looking back at 10 years of externe abstract while the claim for getting prices right is quite popular in conceptual policy papers the implementation of appropriate internalisation strategies is still hampered by a lack of reliable external cost data great expectations were set into the externe project a major research programme launched by the european commission at the beginning of the 1990s to provide a scientific basis for the quantification of energy related externalities and to give guidance supporting the design of internalisation measures after more than a decade of research the externe label became a well recognised standard source for external cost data looking back into the externe history the paper pursues how emerging new scientific insights and changing background assumptions affected external cost estimates and related recommendations to policy over time based on externe results the usefulness and inherent limitations of external cost estimates for impact categories like climate change or nuclear waste disposal is discussed the paper also gives examples on how external costs in spite of remaining uncertainties are successfully used to support environmental policy

towards achieving energy for sustainable development in nigeria the importance of energy availability in the economic growth social and political development of every nation cannot be overemphasized affordable and reliable energy availability is the precondition for sustainable development sustainable development calls for an efficient reliable and decentralized energy economy based on local and clean energy sources in which the price paid by the consumer will reflect the real cost of energy products to the economy there is clear evidence that nigeria is blessed with abundant resources of fossil fuels as well as renewable energy resources the major challenge is inefficient utilization of energy in the country there is no doubt that the present power crisis afflicting nigeria will persist unless the government diversifies her energy sources and adopt new available technologies to reduce energy wastages and save cost this study examines the perspective of energy efficiency and renewable energy in the making of strategies for a sustainable development in nigeria such strategies involve energy savings on the demand side efficiency improvements in the energy production and replacement of fossil fuels by various sources of renewable energy factors that need to be considered in the shift to its sustainable energy future are examined in this article

economic consequences of a capacity market implementation the case of poland abstract this paper investigates the potential economic consequences of setting up a capacity market in poland a computable model of the polish power generation system is developed and employed to analyse the impact of this mechanism two scenarios are designed for this study i a reference scenario that reflects the energy only market and ii a capacity market scenario that assumes the implementation of such an instrument to assess the economic consequences the following parameters are estimated i annual electricity prices ii loss of load hours iii expected energy not served and only for the capacity market scenario iv market clearing price v total budget of the capacity market and vi increase in electricity price due to the introduction of the capacity market the findings of the study indicate that the long term maintenance of the energy only market results in higher electricity prices when compared to putting a capacity market into operation introducing a capacity market enables existing resources to be used effectively without excessive capital expenditure the methods and conclusions presented in this paper provide valuable findings and policy insights regarding the potential economic consequences of a capacity mechanism in a power system mostly dominated by coal and undergoing an energy transition

linear versus nonlinear macroeconomies a statistical test a statistical test based on the estimated bispectrum is presented which can distinguish between the linear stochastic dynamics widely used in macroeconomic models and alternative nonlinear dynamic mechanisms including both nonlinear stochastic models and nonlinear deterministic chaotic models the test is applied to an aggregate stock market index and to an aggregate industrial production index in both cases the test easily rejects the null hypothesis of a linear stochastic generating mechanism this result strongly suggests that nonlinear dynamics deterministic or stochastic should be an important feature of any empirically plausible macroeconomic model copyright 1989 by economics department of the university of pennsylvania and the osaka university institute of social and economic research association

policy options when giving negative externalities market value clean energy policymaking and restructuring the western australian energy sector uncertainty surrounds the choice of instruments that internalise fossil fuel pollution at the local regional and global level this work outlines the considerable growth in the western australian wa energy sector and explores the available options and potential hazards of using specific instruments to internalise externalities these core options are discussed with respect to liberalising energy markets providing private investment certainty and imparting commentary on the developments and consequences of reform in the wa context as a large energy exporter providing certainty for the wa energy sector investment and the community is necessary to maintain the current prosperity remarkably in the decades of market reform progress the absence of one essential element is evident economic externalities policymakers are under increasing pressure to understand economic reform new energy markets and the multifaceted repercussions they entail with modern energy reform sitting squarely within the milieu of more efficient governments and climate policy there are clear economic advantages to internalising negative and positive externalities and other market distortions during energy market developments ignoring market failures when commercialising government owned energy utilities in de regulated and competitive markets invites continued ad hoc government interference that generates investment uncertainty in addition to a perplexed electorate

the future of u s agricultural cooperatives a neo institutional approach thirty years ago helmberger speculated that industrialization of agriculture would lead to the demise of farmer cooperatives helmberger 1966 p 1434 in responding to helmberger s prediction abrahamsen countered by suggesting that as industrialization of agriculture evolved cooperatives would increasingly become the farmer s integrating agency abrahamsen p 1442 in this paper i examine these two divergent opinions by a briefly describing the structural and strategic evolution of u s farmer cooperatives since the helmberger and abrahamsen h a forecasts b utilizing recent developments in neo institutional economic organizational economic theory to generate hypotheses regarding structural and strategic shifts in u s agricultural cooperatives and c further applying neo institutional economics to speculate what the future might hold for u s producerowned and controlled agricultural cooperatives

review of internalization of externalities and dynamics of atmospheric emissions in energy sector of baltic states abstract the existence of external costs can lead to market failure this is because the free market generally ignores the existence of external costs pollution taxes and other flexible market instruments are being applied to internalize external costs of atmospheric emissions subsidies to renewable energy technologies are also being applied to internalize positive external benefits of renewables as these technologies have lower life cycle emissions of classical pollutants and ghg emissions in comparison with fossil fuel based energy generation technologies the paper applies context mechanism outcome cmo theoretical framework based on realistic evaluation theory for review and assessment of the level of internalization of externalities and their impact on atmospheric emissions of classical pollutants in baltic states the paper aims to compare external costs of atmospheric pollution and pollution taxes and other measures to internalize externalities in baltic states and to relate them to the trends of emission of classical pollutants in these countries the external costs of atmospheric pollution were compared in baltic states together with atmospheric pollution taxes and other policy measures used to internalize external costs of atmospheric pollution in baltic states the analysis of trends of atmospheric pollution by classical pollutants in baltic states indicated positive trends since 2004 in all analysed countries though review of internalization of externalities in latvia indicated the lowest levels of external costs internalization in terms of pollution taxes excise taxes and feed in tariffs and subsidies from eu structural funds for renewables the atmospheric emission reduction trends for classical pollutants are very favourable in latvia except air pollution by ozone this indicates that the degree of internalization of external costs related to specific pollutants does not necessary imply emission reduction of these pollutants as other factors as well as country context also play very important role and further investigations of this problem are necessary

sustainable energy systems role of optimization modeling techniques in power generation and supply a review electricity is conceivably the most multipurpose energy carrier in modern global economy and therefore primarily linked to human and economic development energy sector reform is critical to sustainable energy development and includes reviewing and reforming subsidies establishing credible regulatory frameworks developing policy environments through regulatory interventions and creating market based approaches energy security has recently become an important policy driver and privatization of the electricity sector has secured energy supply and provided cheaper energy services in some countries in the short term but has led to contrary effects elsewhere due to increasing competition resulting in deferred investments in plant and infrastructure due to longer term uncertainties on the other hand global dependence on fossil fuels has led to the release of over 1100 gtco2 into the atmosphere since the mid 19th century currently energy related ghg emissions mainly from fossil fuel combustion for heat supply electricity generation and transport account for around 70 of total emissions including carbon dioxide methane and some traces of nitrous oxide this multitude of aspects play a role in societal debate in comparing electricity generating and supply options such as cost ghg emissions radiological and toxicological exposure occupational health and safety employment domestic energy security and social impressions energy systems engineering provides a methodological scientific framework to arrive at realistic integrated solutions to complex energy problems by adopting a holistic systems based approach especially at decision making and planning stage modeling and optimization found widespread applications in the study of physical and chemical systems production planning and scheduling systems location and transportation problems resource allocation in financial systems and engineering design this article reviews the literature on power and supply sector developments and analyzes the role of modeling and optimization in this sector as well as the future prospective of optimization modeling as a tool for sustainable energy systems

dynamic structure of the spot price of crude oil does time aggregation matter abstract this paper assesses nonlinear structures in the time series data generating mechanism of crude oil prices we apply well known univariate tests for nonlinearity with distinct power functions over alternatives but with different null hypotheses reflecting the existence of different concepts of linearity and nonlinearity in the time series literature we utilize daily data on crude oil spot price for over 26 years as well as monthly data on crude oil spot price for 41 years investigating the monthly price of crude oil along with the daily price distinguishes the approach of this paper from existing studies focusing on the time series structure of crude oil price all the tests detect strong evidence of general nonlinear serial dependence as well as nonlinearity in the mean variance and skewness functions in the daily spot price of crude oil since evidence of nonlinear dependence is less dramatic in monthly observations nonlinear serial dependence is moderated by time aggregation in crude oil prices but not significantly

review of grid tie micro generation systems without energy storage towards a new approach to sustainable hybrid energy systems linked to energy efficiency abstract this paper reviews the literature on the subject albeit approaching hybrid micro generation power systems from a systems thinking st and cybernetics standpoint viewing them as dynamically complex adaptive systems cas coupled with and supplying to a set of homes termed a sustainable block in a rural setting here homeostatic regulation hr and control play a vital role in reaching efficient equilibrium towards reconciling power supply and demand response management unlike most of the work reviewed in the literature the focus here is on supervisory control of grid connected micro generation systems without energy storage aiming towards building energy efficiency thriftiness and sustainability in energy consumption building on homeostatic control hc principles first introduced by f c schweppe in 1979 the paper explores the concepts of sustainability and sustainable hybrid energy systems shes applied to micro generation focusing on operational aspects rather than on socio economic environmental or regulatory ones a concrete theoretical model for building a shes is presented for a proposed grid connected renewable microgrid the model seeks to reconcile power supply and demand towards efficient equilibrium homeostasis proposing reward based criteria for controlling renewable electricity supply and consumption in rural communities in chile discussion and recommendations are also offered stating that energy sustainability es is essentially a systems issue and one where es is first and foremost a structural organizational and operational property which is in the very nature of the system itself it is built into it rather than explained by exogenous factors

assessing the competitive interaction between private labels and national brands in this article we employ the linear approximate almost ideal demand system la aids and specify price reaction equations derived under the la aids specification we perform intracategory analyses using data on six individual categories as well as a pooled analysis on a sample of 125 categories and 59 geographic markets we find that consumer response to price and promotion decisions demand and firm pricing behavior supply jointly determine observed market prices and market shares further estimates of residual demand elasticities suggest that examination of partial demand elasticities alone may provide an incomplete picture of the ability of brands to raise price copyright 2000 by university of chicago press

random fractal structures in north american energy markets this paper uses daily observations on west texas intermediate wti crude oil prices at chicago and henry hub natural gas prices at la over the deregulated period of the 1990s and various tests from statistics and dynamical systems theory to support a random fractal structure for north american energy markets in particular this evidence is supported by the vassilicos et al 1993 multifractal structure test and the ghashghaie et al nature 381 1996 767 turbulent behavior test

wind power development in the united states abstract this paper analyzes the drivers of wind power development in the united states focusing on government renewable energy incentives and access to the electricity grid the effects of wind capacity electricity transmission line coverage and grid regulation as well as state and federal subsidies from 1998 to 2007 are estimated via random effects tobit probit and ordinary least squares instrumental variables regression the results indicate that the federal production tax credit state level sales tax credit and production incentives play an important role in promoting wind power in addition higher wind power penetration levels can be achieved by bringing more parts of the electricity transmission grid under independent system operator regulation this paper concludes that state and federal government policies play a significant role in wind power development both by providing financial support and by improving physical and procedural access to the electricity grid

evaluation of grid connected rural electrification projects in developing countries extension of the power grid to rural and remote locations in a country has to be considered after detailed evaluation of technical economic and social implications the use of conventional economic analytical techniques to evaluate proposed rural distribution systems in an oil importing developing country environment is discussed the parameters involved in the analyses are described in detail case studies are presented using a typical developing country revalidation of evaluations incorporating socio economic analysis is introduced

demand for farm output in a complete system of demand functions demand interrelationships for farm outputs that are theoretically consistent with consumer demand and marketing group behavior provide important linkages between retail and farm prices a conceptual model based on reduced form specifications for retail and farm prices is formulated and applied empirically to a set of eight disaggregated food commodities this approach circumvents the need for retail quantities which are frequently unavailable for disaggregated food commodities the results are consistent with theory and generally indicate significant substitution between farm and marketing inputs except for poultry derived demand elasticities are at least 40 larger compared to those derived assuming fixed proportions

the asymmetric effects of oil price and monetary policy shocks a nonlinear var approach in this paper we investigate the asymmetric effects of oil price shocks and monetary policy on macroeconomic activity using monthly data for the united states over the period from 1983 1 to 2008 12 in doing so we use a logistic smooth transition vector autoregression var as detailed in terasvirta and anderson 1992 and weise 1999 and make a distinction between two oil price volatility regimes high and low using the realized oil price volatility as a switching variable we isolate the effects of oil price and monetary policy shocks and their asymmetry on output growth and following koop et al 1996 and weise 1999 we employ simulation methods to calculate generalized impulse response functions girfs to trace the effects of independent shocks on the conditional means of the variables our results suggest that in addition to the price of oil oil price volatility has an impact on macroeconomic activity and that monetary policy is not only reinforcing the effects of oil price shocks on output it is also contributing to the asymmetric response of output to oil price shocks

unit root properties of crude oil spot and futures prices in this article we examine whether wti and brent crude oil spot and futures prices at 1 3 and 6 months to maturity contain a unit root with one and two structural breaks employing weekly data over the period 1991 2004 to realise this objective we employ lagrange multiplier lm unit root tests with one and two endogenous structural breaks proposed by lee and strazicich 2003 minimum lagrange multiplier unit root test with two structural breaks review of economics and statistics 85 1082 1089 2004 minimum lm unit root test with one structural break working paper no 04 17 department of economics appalachian state university we find that each of the oil price series can be characterised as a random walk process and that the endogenous structural breaks are significant and meaningful in terms of events that have impacted on world oil markets

the damage costs of climate change toward more comprehensive calculations it is argued that estimating the damage costs of a certain benchmark climate change is not sufficient what is needed are cost functions and confidence intervals although these are contained in the integrated models and their technical manuals this paper brings them into the open in order to stimulate discussion after briefly reviewing the benchmark climate change damage costs region specific cost functions are presented which distinguish tangible from intangible losses and the losses due to a changing climate from those due to a changed climate furthermore cost functions are assumed to be quadratic as an approximation of the unknown but presumably convex functions results from the damage module of the integrated climate economy model fund are presented next uncertainties are incorporated and expected damages are calculated it is shown that because of convex loss functions and right skewed uncertain ties the risk premium is substantial calling for more action than analysis based on best guess estimates the final section explores some needs for further scientific research

generation expansion planning optimisation with renewable energy integration a review generation expansion planning consists of finding the optimal long term plan for the construction of new generation capacity subject to various economic and technical constraints it usually involves solving a large scale non linear discrete and dynamic optimisation problem in a highly constrained and uncertain environment traditional approaches to capacity planning have focused on achieving a least cost plan during the last two decades however new paradigms for expansion planning have emerged that are driven by environmental and political factors this has resulted in the formulation of multi criteria approaches that enable power system planners to simultaneously consider multiple and conflicting objectives in the decision making process more recently the increasing integration of intermittent renewable energy sources in the grid to sustain power system decarbonisation and energy security has introduced new challenges such a transition spawns new dynamics pertaining to the variability and uncertainty of these generation resources in determining the best mix in addition to ensuring adequacy of generation capacity it is essential to consider the operational characteristics of the generation sources in the planning process in this paper we first review the evolution of generation expansion planning techniques in the face of more stringent environmental policies and growing uncertainty more importantly we highlight the emerging challenges presented by the intermittent nature of some renewable energy sources in particular we discuss the power supply adequacy and operational flexibility issues introduced by variable renewable sources as well as the attempts made to address them finally we identify important future research directions

the damage costs of climate change towards a dynamic representation economic assessments of climate change impacts are commonly presented as the effect of a climate change associated with a doubling of the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide on the current economy this paper is an attempt to express impact as a function of both climate change and socio economic change with regard to climate change issues discussed are level versus rate of change speed of adaptation speed of restoration and value adjustment and symmetry with regard to socio economic change agriculture migration and the valuation of intangible losses are addressed uncertainty and higher order impacts are treated briefly it is qualitatively argued and quantitatively illustrated that these issues matter a great deal for the damage profile over the next century a damage model based on my best guesses is presented in the appendix

limits to the value of external costs based on recent insights from the field of risk analysis this paper examines some of the difficulties encountered in attempts to characterise the environmental effects of energy options as monetary externalities more than 20 different dimensions of environmental appraisal are identified and discussed in relation to the historic literature on risk assessment and a number of recent influential environmental valuation studies a survey is conducted of the results obtained over more than a decade for the external environmental costs of electricity supply options theoretical and methodological criticisms are lent support by the finding that environmental valuation results vary over a very wide range of values yielding a variety of rank orderings for the different generating options in addition the values derived for energy externalities are found to be vulnerable to the possible influence of a price imperative the paper concludes by pointing to approaches to the social appraisal of generating technologies which offer greater transparency rigour and accessibility in addressing plural and intrinsically subjective value judgements concerning the different forms and dimensions of environmental effects

ownership structure in agrifood chains the marketing cooperative globalization technological developments and consumer concerns press farmers and food producers to enhance product innovation and to seek more efficient production and distribution structures these changes in agrifood markets shift the relative importance of the investments by different chain partners it may therefore be necessary to change the allocation of ownership of essential assets to induce agents to make those investments that generate the chain optimum this article analyzes the impact of ownership structure on investments in a three tier supply chain from an incomplete contracting perspective circumstances are determined in which a marketing cooperative is the unique first best ownership structure

agricultural markets as relative performance evaluation relative performance schemes such as tournaments are commonly used in markets for a variety of livestock and processing commodities while explicit versions of these schemes are rarely used in markets for fresh fruits and vegetables and specialty grains we show how contracts for these latter commodities do in fact provide relative performance incentives albeit indirectly via a payment mechanism that depends on market prices in such contracts compensation is often an increasing function of revenue this implements a relative performance scheme by making each grower s payment an increasing function of his own output but a decreasing function of other s output in an important 1982 article holmstr om models the problem facing a group of agents each of whom produces an observable quantity of some good by taking an unobservable action a rather robust conclusion from this line of inquiry is that when the production of one agent is not independent of the production of another then the compensation awarded to the first agent should depend not only on his own production but also on the output of others in particular if agents production is positively correlated because of some common shock for example then an agent s compensation should be larger when other agents output is smaller a phenomenon which holmstr om terms relative performance evaluation relative performance evaluation ought to be particularly important for agricultural producers and the various intermediaries who purchase their output these producers face considerable common risk from aggregate production shocks and so one would expect that relative performance evaluation could improve efficiency in fact certain types of agricultural intermediaries do use explicit relative performance schemes as predicted by