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

growth paths and survival chances an application of gambler s ruin theory this paper links new firm survival with growth with a focus on the patterns in firms growth paths we theorise a gambler s ruin framework by arguing that new firm performance is best modelled as a random walk process but that survival is nonrandom and depends primarily on the stock of accumulated resources a firm s resources are either there when the business begins or are generated by successful periods wins the empirical section tracks over six years the sales and survival non survival of 6247 uk start ups which all began trading in the same quarter of 2004 we do not find strong evidence in favour of a taxonomy of growth paths because we observe that every possible growth path seems to occur with roughly equal probability however we observe that growth paths influence subsequent survival controlling for lagged size we observe that longer lags of growth and even start up size have significant effects on survival

impacts of wind and solar spatial diversification on its market value a case study of the chilean electricity market abstract renewable energy is expected to become the main electricity source in the world in the coming decades with solar and wind power taking a big share of the energy supply although there has been a remarkable advance on renewable energy technologies their integration is still difficult for regulators market designers and system operators due to the high variability and limited predictability of solar and wind resources measures can be adopted to ease their integration among them geographical diversification there is plenty of literature about the diversification of solar and wind resources and there is a common conclusion greater dispersion smooths out power production however literature on the effects of spatial diversification on the power system electricity prices and renewable energy market value is much scarcer this paper studies the effects of spatial diversification and questions whether integration policies are incentivizing the placement of renewable generators where they provide the highest value to the electricity system in chile using real data and a simplified dispatch model the analysis presented shows evidence of the effects of diversification on wind and solar market value in chile results suggest that spatial diversification has a strong positive effect on the market value of renewable energy especially in scenarios with active transmission and hydro storage constraints wind market value may vary up to us 10 mw h depending on the level of diversification and the spatial and temporal constraints of the system and given current storage capacity of hydro reservoirs the solar market value may increase us 5 mw h due to diversification if transmission capacity is enough even though these results must be observed with caution because they depend on the assumptions made there is an important effect of renewable spatial diversification that should be observed by regulators

res and risk renewable energy s contribution to energy security a portfolio based approach abstract during the first decade of the 21st century renewable energy sources res had been gaining momentum due to environmental issues concerns about pollution and climate change have raised public awareness encouraging governments to adopt policies to preserve and protect the environment regarding energy res promotion together with energy efficiency measures has been the main policy response to address such concerns as a consequence res development during the first decade of the 21st century has been remarkable although res deployment has been mainly focused on achieving environmental goals its potential contribution to energy security went not unnoticed however it is worth noting that while the trade off between environmental goals and the use of res to accomplish them and competitiveness has been widely explored the relationship between energy security and res has received less attention both at the conceptual and energy policy levels this article tries to address such a relationship the present article focuses on renewable electricity imports as illustrated by the case of the mediterranean solar plan after introducing the energy security energy risk concept and its dimensions the article focuses on the contribution of res in terms of security of supply for a given energy mix using the portfolio theory most of the analyses of the interactions between res and energy security focus on the national level with res being mainly conceived as a substitute for fuel imports to produce electricity and reduce so called energy dependence however new transmission technologies allow the import of electricity directly from neighbouring countries far out of the range of regular electricity lines therefore this article tries to broaden the analysis of energy security to international res trade flows applying the previous discussion to the main project involving significant international green electricity trade the mediterranean solar plan

energy security and renewable electricity trade will desertec make europe vulnerable to the energy weapon abstract solar power imports to europe from the deserts of north africa as foreseen in the desertec concept is one possible way to help decarbonising the european power sector by 2050 however this approach raises questions of threats to european energy security in such an import scenario particularly in the light of increasing import dependency and russia s use of the energy weapon in recent years in this paper we investigate the threat of north african countries using the desertec electricity exports as an energy weapon we develop and use a new model to assess the interdependence the bargaining power symmetry operationalised as costs of a disruption in a future renewable electricity trade between north africa and europe if europe maintains current capacity buffers some demand response capability and does not import much more than what is described in the desertec scenario it is susceptible to extortion and political pressure only if all five exporter countries unite in using the energy weapon europe is not vulnerable to extortion by an export cut from only one country as the european capacity buffers are sufficient to restore the power supply no single exporter country would have sustained bargaining power over europe

electricity transition in the middle east and north africa a de risking governance approach high upfront costs and investment risks constitute critical barriers for investments in low carbon infrastructure technologies in the middle east and north africa this article uses a case study of morocco s solar strategy for the electricity sector in order to explore how domestic versus regional multilateral governance structures impact upon the downside risk of clean energy investments and translate into lower financing costs we firstly process trace the differential effects of governance on policy and financial de risking intended as risk reduction and risk transfer then we quantify the impact of policy and financial de risking on the financing costs of the ouarzazate csp noor 1 project our results suggest that i policy and financial de risking depended on a clear policy commitment of the government to develop solar electricity a strong domestic institutional capacity to transform commitment into concrete projects as well as a strong commitment of development finance institutions at project level our results suggest that ii lower financing cost depended on concessional finance provided by multiple lenders proactive policy de risking efforts taken at domestic level and the competitive auction besides the expected impact of concessional finance these findings lend qualitative quantitative support to the argument that domestic policy de risking pay off unlocking concessional finance and reducing the private investors required return from the project therefore governments of the middle east and north africa countries should pursue any efforts in implementing or enhancing policy de risking measures under the emerging post 2020 climate policy regime new instruments might also incorporate a focus on investment risks through country specific technical and financial assistance however our analysis suggests that electricity policy legacies and practices are hard to change in the middle east and north africa therefore technical and financial assistance should target especially those areas that have a particular policy de risking potential namely capacity building on project assessment project finance and grid management

perception of risks in renewable energy projects the case of concentrated solar power in north africa the world needs to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to prevent climate change while meeting the energy needs of developed and developing economies recent studies suggest that generation of electricity from concentrated solar power in north african countries and its transmission to europe could provide european and north african partners with low carbon electricity the private capital will be likely required to achieve the scale of new investment and yet the north african region experience difficulties with sustaining high levels of foreign direct investment from the private sector the literature identifies a number of risks as barriers to investment and we examine these in the particular context of renewable energy development we conducted three stages of interviews with stakeholders to learn their perceptions of the risks most likely to affect renewable energy projects three class of risks regulatory political and force majeure which includes terrorism stand out as being of high concern of these regulatory risks are perceived as being the most consequential and the most likely to occur this suggests that attention to building the capacities of north african countries to develop implement and enforce sound regulations in a transparent manner could be an important step in promoting renewable energy cooperation with europe

oil vulnerability index of oil importing countries abstract this paper assesses the relative oil vulnerability of 26 net oil importing countries for the year 2004 on the basis of various indicators the ratio of value of oil imports to gross domestic product gdp oil consumption per unit of gdp gdp per capita and oil share in total energy supply ratio of domestic reserves to oil consumption exposure to geopolitical oil market concentration risks as measured by net oil import dependence diversification of supply sources political risk in oil supplying countries and market liquidity the approach using the principal component technique has been adopted to combine these individual indicators into a composite index of oil vulnerability such an index captures the relative sensitivity of various economies towards developments of the international oil market with a higher index indicating higher vulnerability the results show that there are considerable differences in the values of individual indicators of oil vulnerability and overall oil vulnerability index among the countries both inter and intraregional

measuring organizational downside risk despite widespread incorporation of risk measures in strategy research there is little consensus regarding the meaning and measurement of risk in contrast to the variability measures widely used in strategy studies this paper draws from behavioral decision theory finance and management theory to present an alternative perspective on organizational risk downside risk the paper explains three categories of organizational downside risk measures based on the concept of lower partial moments the latter sections of the paper present considerations involved in specifying operational measures of downside risk and an empirical comparison of alternative downside risk measures

money not morale the impact of desires and beliefs on private investment in photovoltaic citizen participation initiatives abstract a transition towards renewable energy production is one proposed solution as one means of reducing greenhouse gas emissions in this regard photovoltaic citizen participation initiatives are a cornerstone in fostering the diffusion of renewables allowing for active citizen engagement this article investigates the drivers behind people s decision to participate in two selected austrian citizen participation initiatives in the field of photovoltaics based on a survey of 870 potential adopters in addition to commonly used indicators variables assessing both people s desires their goals or preferences with respect to energy autonomy environmental protection financial aspects etc and their beliefs how likely they think their participation in a citizen participation initiative in the field of photovoltaics will help them achieve these goals are also included in the analysis the findings show that people s desires are not decisive in deciding on pv participation and that financial beliefs are the main driver behind joining such an initiative this focus on financial gain clearly poses a risk in any attempted transition towards renewable energy production as it indicates that adopters may withdraw from participation as soon as a more attractive investment opportunity becomes available it also indicates that subsidized feed in tariffs are likely to be essential in any long term transition policy

energy security and renewable energy deployment in the eu liaisons dangereuses or virtuous circle abstract a large body of literature estimates the effect of energy security drivers on renewable energy deployment using import dependence as a proxy for energy security which is an approach that ignores the potential effect of other energy security strategies such as the diversification of energy sources using panel data for the energy sector across 21 eu member states we investigate the effect of different energy security concepts on the development of renewable energies we compare the results of applying different energy security indicators including the ones used in eu energy policymaking unlike previous studies this study reports a long term relationship between energy security and renewable deployment our findings suggest that the relationship between energy security policies and renewable energy sources res deployment is far from straightforward and depends on the chosen energy security strategy which is usually linked to different energy security conceptualizations our primary findings confirm i that res deployment is a consequence of a combination of energy security strategies including environmental concerns rather than being solely caused by a shift towards more sustainable energy policies and ii that among the different energy security strategies the diversification of energy sources through renewable energy deployment is a more coherent strategy than using res to reduce dependency

objective one funding in the uk a critical assessment gripaios p and bishop p 2006 objective one funding in the uk a critical assessment regional studies 40 937 951 the paper examines several issues that question the underlying basis of uk objective one funding first it is doubtful that the current qualifying regions are appropriate territories over which to apply the eligibility criterion for funding second it is debatable whether gross domestic product gdp gross value added gva per capita should be the only criterion used to justify aid third a lack of statistical reliability implies that there is little confidence that all the current regions are the only appropriate funding recipients finally it is questionable whether funding can have much impact given the extent of underlying structural problems and flaws in the focus of the programme gripaios p et bishop p 2006 le financement au r u selon l objectif i une critique regional studies 40 937 951 cet article cherche a examiner divers problemes qui remettent en question la base

the prediction of bankruptcy of small and medium sized industrial firms using large amounts of data from small and medium sized industrial firms this study examines several aspects of bankruptcy prediction we have tested a hypothesis on the predictive power of different ratio categories during the successive phases before bankruptcy and one on the relationship between the age of a firm and the predictability of bankruptcy it was found that virtually every ratio investigated had some predictive power and that the univariate and multivariate importance of ratio stability were not very high

activities implemented jointly another look at the facts abstract the first conference of the parties to the united nations framework convention on climate change in berlin established a pilot phase of so called activities implemented jointly aij this pilot phase started in 1995 and was to end in 1999 it was prolonged at the fourth conference of the parties in buenos aires 1998 for a yet undetermined period after 2000 this paper is an empirical study of aij experience in the first five years 1995 1999 based on 96 aij from the unfccc s web site as of april 30 1999 and a separate study on seven aij projects of japan the main results of this study are 1 aij investment shows a pattern of regional specificity with rather divergent regional investment portfolios in the united states japan and europe this pattern can be traced back to differences in the national aij programs of investors and hosts on the one hand and to specific ways of minimizing transaction cost on the other e g by attaching aij to established institutional links of development co operation or by trading in the neighbourhood and 2 aijs are overwhelmingly no regret measures with almost zero or negative cost transaction costs of reporting have been minimized by applying simple and straightforward methods of baseline determination the exception to this is the verification procedure where expensive external verification prevails

development of supersmart grids for a more efficient utilisation of electricity from renewable sources abstract if europe is serious about reaching its target to keep global mean temperature increase below 2 c it must strive for a 100 renewable electricity system by 2050 the supersmart grid approach combines what is often perceived as two exclusive alternatives wide area power generation and decentralised power generation we argue that by combining these in fact complementary measures it is possible to address the crucial issue of renewable generation fluctuating supply in a comprehensive as well as in a technologically and economically viable manner thus the supersmart grid simultaneously can contribute to energy security climate security social security and national security

optimal investment portfolio in renewable energy the spanish case abstract this article presents a model for investing in renewable energies in the framework of the spanish electricity market in a way that risk is minimised for the investor while returns are maximised the model outlined here is based on an economic model for calculating cash flows intended to obtain the internal rate of return irr of the different energies being studied wind photovoltaic mini hydro and thermo electrical the irrs obtained are considered the returns on investments while their standard deviations are considered associated risks in order to minimise risk a comprehensive portfolio of investments is created that includes all of the available energies by means of a system of linear equations the solution of the linear system is graphically checked using the efficient frontier method for the different financing options several case studies within the renewable energies plan per is its spanish abbreviation that is in force in spain in the period 2005 2010 are analysed in order to illustrate the method as are other case studies using different types of financing helping us to reach the pertinent conclusions

a vision on the opportunities policies and coping strategies for the energy security and green energy development in malaysia abstract energy security management remains a complex and fragmented interplay between the population growth urbanization economical development and the living environment today green technology application has been the prime contributor and an indispensable factor to preserve the long term reliability of energy supply this agenda has called for an integrated adaptive coordinated environmentally oriented and participatory approach to the protection of renewable resources malaysia endowed with its rich natural resources and diversity recognizes the need to adopt a sound developmental framework to transform the country s energy management landscape into a high quality and excellent level parallel to this development both government and non governmental organizations continue to advocate national efforts to explore alternative energy and improve the dynamic energy growth in a cost effective manner the plan espouses the establishment of ocean energy geothermal power hydropower wind power hydrogen fuel cell nuclear energy biodiesel and bioethanol processing industries the impetus is accompanied by the integration of environmental protection rules and boosted by the implementation of new energy policies the present work attempts to address the opportunities dynamic pressure and coping strategies of energy security and green energy development in malaysia the present and future outlooks of renewable and non renewable energy are elucidated besides the research breakthroughs and joint co operations for the promotion of green energy management are outlined

fruitful symbiosis why an export bundled with wind energy is the most feasible option for north african concentrated solar power abstract the idea of generating electricity in north africa using concentrating solar thermal power csp has been around for some time now but has recently gained momentum through the mediterranean solar plan msp and the formation of the desertec industrial initiative this paper argues that while the large scale deployment of csp in north africa does not seem economically attractive for either european or african institutions or countries on their own at present combining domestic use and electricity exports could be profitable for both parties a detailed economic portfolio covering both solar and wind power plants can achieve competitive price levels which would accelerate the diffusion of solar technology in north africa this portfolio could be financed partially by exporting electricity from solar thermal plants in north africa via hvdc interconnections to european consumers sharing the costs in this way makes it possible to generate solar electricity for the domestic market at a reasonable cost some of the electricity produced from the solar power plants and wind parks in north africa is sold on european energy markets in the form of a long term contracted solar wind portfolio which would qualify for support from the financial incentive schemes of the european member states e g feed in tariffs this transfer of green electricity could help to meet the targets for energy from renewable energy sources res in the eu member states as the new eu directive of 2009 opened the european electricity market to imports from third states

a portfolio of nobel laureates markowitz miller and sharpe three pioneers of quantitative finance have now been justly honored harry markowitz merton miller and william sharpe received the nobel prize in economic science in 1990 from today s perspective it is hard to understand what finance was like before portfolio theory here i attempt to provide a very brief history of the quantitative revolution in finance drawing upon p bernstein s capital ideas 1992 and accounts of the three nobel laureates

financial risk reduction in photovoltaic projects through ocean atmospheric oscillations modeling abstract the impact of climate change on society has increased the interest to deploy renewable energies and to understand climate climate variability is partly predictable and is a fundamental factor in explaining financial risk in renewable energy projects current methodologies used for risk assessment do not appropriately account for climate predictability we found limited literature on risk reduction on pv projects through the modeling of predictable components of solar radiation and ocean atmospheric oscillations allowing us to present original proposals to fill these voids a new profit model for pv plants was developed capturing this predictable climate information the proposed methodology is potentially applicable to hydro wind and other renewable resources and allows leaving aside predictable climate components from the project s risk calculation the model was tailored for the risk assessment of pv investments and is applied over 10 geographical areas across chile the largest pv market in latin america where climate is strongly affected by 3 ocean atmospheric oscillations el nino southern oscillation southern annular mode and indian ocean dipole using the model in these regions allows reducing the monthly financial the risk to reduce by 60 81 compared to traditional methodology for a 100 mw pv project located in those areas this means reducing annualized risk from 4 93 to 7 88 mm usd year traditional model to 1 11 2 38 mm usd year proposed model modeling of ocean atmospheric oscillations allows achieving the greatest risk reduction between the cities of copiapo and coquimbo north central regions decreasing their influence towards the extreme latitudes their risk reduction will depend on the quality of the model and may have strong implications for both investors and financial institutions it could also impact competition in the energy sector due to possible asymmetries of information to facilitate extending the use of the model elsewhere the incorporation of subsidies is discussed

the role of inward investment in urban economic development the cases of bristol cardiff and plymouth this paper examines the role of manufacturing and services foreign direct investment fdi in the restructuring of the three large cities in the south west and wales bristol plymouth and cardiff key differences in the fdi stock of each city are analysed with special attention given to location rationale and quality of investments bristol is found to be comparatively successful in attracting high grade manufacturing regional service centres of manufacturing companies and financial and computer services firms location and policy influences have meant that cardiff and plymouth have been more dependent on production only facilities and plymouth in particular has had difficulty attracting financial and business services investment policy and practical ramifications of the study are explained

adverse selection private information and lowballing in insurance markets recent contributions to the adverse selection literature have focused on a multiperiod competitive environment in this setting a clean distinction arises between the predictions of competing models cooper and hayes extend the model of rothschild and stiglitz to multiple periods the result is a self selecting equilibrium characterized by price highballing or systematically overcharging new business kunreuther and pauly suggest that information asymmetries between competing insurance firms render such price quantity policies infeasible their model results in a pooling equilibrium that is characterized by price lowballing or systematically undercharging new business our evidence is consistent with the kunreuther and pauly model and reveals the persistence of adverse selection in the automobile insurance market copyright 1990 by the university of chicago

renewable energy and geopolitics a review this article reviews the literature on the geopolitics of renewable energy it finds that while the roots of this literature can be traced back to the 1970s and 1980s most of it has been published from 2010 onwards the following aggregate conclusions are extracted from the literature renewable energy has many advantages over fossil fuels for international security and peace however renewable energy is thought to exacerbate security risks and geopolitical tensions related to critical materials and cybersecurity former hydrocarbon exporters will likely be the greatest losers from the energy transition many of the reviewed publications share some weaknesses a failure to define geopolitics an unwarranted assumption that very little has been published in the field previously limited use of established forecasting scenario building or foresight methodologies a lack of recognition of the complexity of the field a lack of theorisation most authors do not distinguish between the geopolitical risks associated with different types of renewable energy and only a few distinguish clearly between the geopolitics of the transitional phase and the geopolitics of a post energy transition world a disproportionately large part of the literature is dedicated to critical materials and cybersecurity while only a small part concerns the decline of former fossil fuel powers among those publications that do discuss the decline of fossil fuels there is also an over focus on oil producers and a lack of attention to the countries that rely heavily on coal for example australia china germany indonesia poland and the united states

portfolio applications in electricity markets review private investor and manager perspective trends abstract the private sector plays a major role in the expansion and operation of power systems in most countries especially those running liberalized electricity markets policymakers have the task of inducing private agents through their regulatory designs to make decisions that point toward social welfare maximization conversely it is a task of private agents to protect themselves against the risks of the sector including regulatory risks international fuel price uncertainty climate change policies natural resource availability electricity demand uncertainty co2 clearance prices etc instead of hiding all of these risks within the total project costs and losing competitiveness private agents can use diversification as a strategy to deal with them this paper presents a review of the main applications voids and challenges of portfolio optimization for two key agents of the private sector investors and managers the problem of the investor is to design a technology portfolio to invest in that maximizes its expected returns and limits risks while the manager has to design a portfolio of financial physical instruments long term contracts futures etc to sell buy electricity and hedge against price risks we have found two fundamental issues in the literature the first and most important is excessive confidence in historical data and statistical analysis for predicting future price behavior for a changing future in detriment of more structural analysis structural analysis can include particularities of modern power systems such as future transmission changes congestion operational constraints ramps new entrants new technologies and new demand grow patterns that cannot be taken into account by simply analyzing price historical values the second is the omission of renewable complementarities which is a proven characteristic of dispersed renewable plants that may have important risk mitigation effects although it has largely been ignored in portfolio analysis due to insufficient data modeling limitations and computational complexity

prediction of failure of a newly founded firm abstract the rate of mortality among newly founded firms is very high failure statistics universally show that over 50 of newly founded firms will fail during their first five years the economic financial and social losses resulting from these failures are significant thus it is valuable to try to develop methods to predict and to avoid such failures however there are only very few studies dealing with failure prediction methods for newly founded firms the aim of this study was to develop such methods that would also have practical value failure was defined as cash insolvency the aim was to develop a failure prediction model based on financial statement data from newly founded firms the ratios based on these data are hard measures and easy to calculate also for a person forced to only use publicly available information a prediction model based on these ratios could then be a practical method for financial analysts and other interest groups in evaluating the failure probability of a new firm this model does not require information about management products or markets because it rather deals with the symptoms of failure than the causes the study is based on a supposition that failure process in a newly founded firm is characterized by a too high initial indebtedness and by too low revenue financing as compared with the budget this supposition was supported by the empirical results based on the comparison of the financial ratios in first four years between 20 failed and 20 nonfailed small newly founded entrepreneurial industrial firms these results may give an explanation as to why some newly founded firms will fail and some will survive this explanation is of course based on the development of financial variables in the very first years the results showed that it is possible to some degree to predict the failure of a newly founded firm already in the first year after foundation the prediction accuracy will increase when the data of failure is approached the best univariate predictors proved to be stockholders capital to total capital ratio indebtedness cash flow to net sales ratio revenue financing and cash flow to total debt ratio sufficiency of revenue financing to pay financial obligations the prediction accuracy can be increased by adjusting the critical value of the ratio stepwisely to the year of operation thus the optimal critical value will change year by year after foundation the prediction accuracy can slightly be improved by a multivariate analysis this kind of multivariate model also included the logarithmic size net sales of the firm as a variable so that the probability to fail increased when the size increased the results also showed that the same multivariate model estimated for older small firms can be used as a failure prediction model for newly founded firms however this requires that quite different critical values are selected for both types of firms to summarize the results show that the failure of a newly founded firm is to some degree predictable by univariate or multivariate analyses the failure risk is increased with high indebtedness insufficient revenue financing and large size in the first years hence the risk to fail can be reduced by using less debt as initial financing and by paying special attention to the generation of a sufficient amount of revenues in initial stages furthermore it may be less risky to start business operations with a smaller rather than larger initial size

the insertion of biogas in the sugarcane mill product portfolio a study using the robust optimization approach abstract biogas generation from vinasse a problematic residue from the ethanol process has been discussed as an alternative to increase sustainability and profitability in the brazilian sugarcane industry recent studies have widely assessed the technical feasibility of biogas projects however the economic impact of this new product on the overall results of sugarcane mills still needs to be addressed as this is still an incipient technology in the sector as price risks represent a significant issue for production decisions in the sugarcane industry and they may be addressed through portfolio diversification this paper aims to examine the implications of the insertion of biogas into their product portfolios a risk measure broadly used in literature cvar was applied in the optimization model proposed additionally a robust counterpart for the model was developed to deal with price uncertainties and assess their potential impact on the portfolio decisions the models were validated through both a ceteris paribus and a factorial analysis and the results obtained allowed the understanding of the role that biogas production may play in the sugarcane industry in both models standard and robust the use of biogas for the substitution of diesel stands out as the only economic application the results also indicate that for most of the price scenarios performed electricity generation from biogas is not economically feasible furthermore it was highlighted that the insertion of biogas into the portfolio yields a gain in the overall efficient frontier of sugarcane mills thus in conclusion this study presents strong evidence of the economic feasibility of biogas generation in the brazilian sugarcane industry and the model developed to perform this analysis is shown to be a powerful tool to further assess the impact of price policies on their production decisions

the effect of political events on united states direct foreign investment a pooled time series cross sectional analysis this paper examines the effect of political events on the manufacturing direct foreign investment mdfi decisions of u s multinational corporations the relationship between political events and nonpolitical factors and mdfi is investigated through regression analysis of pooled time series 21 years and cross sectional 24 countries data and through various tests of the homogeneity of the relationship across groups of countries the study finds that the relationship between political events in mdfi is different for less developed countries as opposed to developed countries for the less developed countries both inter nation and intra nation conflict and cooperation affect mdfi in contrast u s mdfi in developed countries appears to be affected only by inter nation conflict and cooperation

solar power investment in north africa reducing perceived risks abstract climate protection targets for mid century imply a need to scale up european renewable power production to a level that may exceed the available land area within europe s borders one attractive solution from a cost and feasibility perspective is the development of large scale concentrating solar power plants in north africa and the middle east however these developments are seen by many people as risky in terms of both european energy security and in terms of the risks faced by project developers in this paper we focus on the latter of theses issues first we examine the risks that project developers are most concerned about and identify these as being associated not with terrorism and rogue state behavior but rather with corruption and inefficient and unpredictable bureaucracies second we identify a range of policy approaches that can reduce these risks either by mitigating their consequences or by seeking to eliminate their underlying causes third we investigate the financial benefits of taking such steps to reduce or eliminate investment risks we find the potential savings to european electricity consumers to exceed 200 billion

the merit order effect a detailed analysis of the price effect of renewable electricity generation on spot market prices in germany the german feed in support of electricity generation from renewable energy sources has led to high growth rates of the supported technologies critics state that the costs for consumers are too high an important aspect to be considered in the discussion is the price effect created by renewable electricity generation this paper seeks to analyse the impact of privileged renewable electricity generation on the electricity market in germany the central aspect to be analysed is the impact of renewable electricity generation on spot market prices the results generated by an agent based simulation platform indicate that the financial volume of the price reduction is considerable in the short run this gives rise to a distributional effect which creates savings for the demand side by reducing generator profits in the case of the year 2006 the volume of the merit order effect exceeds the volume of the net support payments for renewable electricity generation which have to be paid by consumers

evaluating the dynamic performance of energy portfolios empirical evidence from the dea directional distance function abstract in recent years the complex global energy commodity market has led to increased uncertainty for energy investment returns and tremendous challenges for investors to design appropriate energy portfolios therefore we employ four popular portfolio methods to determine energy portfolios based on daily fossil fuel futures prices during 2006 2015 moreover we use the dea window analysis method and dea directional distance function to comprehensively evaluate the dynamic performance of these energy portfolios based on the efficiency perspective the empirical results indicate that first to increase investment returns the mean variance method that exclusively emphasizes the maximization of returns shows the best performance however in order to decrease the volatility and risk of investment returns the mean variance method that aims to resist risk more than make profits and the bootstrap historical simulation value at risk var method have the best performance second when the global financial crisis broke out in the second half of 2008 and energy markets experienced a sharp downturn in the second half of 2014 the dea efficiency of energy portfolios appeared relatively lower than those of their neighboring periods regardless of which portfolio method is employed finally the average dea efficiencies of energy portfolios are all higher than those of single energy investment throughout the sample period except when the equally weighted method and the information entropy comprehensive index method are used meanwhile the mean variance method that prefers profit making to risk resisting possesses the highest average dea efficiency among various methods concerned

climate policy induced investments in developing countries the implications of investment risks international climate policy has assigned the leading role in emissions abatement to the industrialized countries while developing countries remain uncommitted to binding emission reduction targets however cooperation between the industrialized and the developing world through joint implementation of emission abatement promises substantial economic gains to both parties in this context the policy debate on joint implementation has addressed the question of how investment risks to project based emission crediting between industrialized countries and developing countries affect the magnitude and distribution of such gains in our quantitative analysis we find that the incorporation of country specific investment risks induces rather small changes vis a vis a situation where investment risks are neglected only if investors go for high safety of returns is there a distinct decline in the overall volume of emission crediting and the associated total economic benefits while the welfare effects of risk incorporation for industrialized countries are unequivocally negative the implications across developing countries are ambiguous whereas low risk developing countries attract higher project volumes and benefit from higher effective prices per emission credit compared to a reference scenario without risk the opposite applies to high risk countries sensitivity analysis with respect to higher risk estimates show that shifts in the comparative advantage of emission abatement against high risk countries may become dramatic as only very low cost mitigation projects will be realized driving down the country s benefits from emission crediting to the advantage of low risk developing countries this result is supported by empirical evidence on regional imbalances of activities implemented jointly under the pilot phase of the kyoto protocol

the price of policy risk empirical insights from choice experiments with european photovoltaic project developers managing the transition to a renewable energy future is an important policy priority in many countries solar photovoltaic pv technology is expected to make an important contribution but due to relatively higher cost its growth to date has been largely driven by public policy notably feed in tariffs feed in tariffs have been implemented in various countries however with widely differing outcomes in terms of installed pv capacity previous research indicates that the level of policy risk may be an important driver for differences in renewable energy policy effectiveness more specifically we suggest that investors who take a decision between pv investment opportunities in different countries carefully weigh feed in tariff induced returns against a set of policy risks and choose the country with the most favorable risk return profile we empirically test this model based on a stated preference survey among european pv project developers consisting of 1575 choice decisions by 63 investors the findings of our study demonstrate that risk matters in pv policy design and that a price tag can be attached to specific policy risks such as the duration of administrative processes or uncertainty induced by an approaching capacity cap governments can build on our empirical results to design policies that will be effective in attracting private pv investment while at the same time maintaining efficiency by providing an adequate compensation for policy risk

a critical assessment of the evaluation of eu interventions for innovation in the sme sector in wales in this paper the eu structural fund intervention framework is critically assessed in an effort to reflect on the problems faced by policy makers when trying to make sense of the complexity associ

effects of the matching fund program on ipo and bankruptcy of smes in korea most small and medium enterprises smes in korea struggle in financing r d thus the korea core industrial technology investment association kitia was established to implement a matching fund program mfp to help smes with this undertaking applicant firms to the mfp are reviewed first based on their technology levels and are required to attract financing from venture capitalists vcs before receiving funds from the mfp this paper based on kitias mfp applicant data from 2001 to 2004 evaluates the performance of the mfp in terms of the success rate of funded smes initial public offerings ipos and bankruptcy rates in relation to those smes that could not attract matching funds propensity score matching was used to eliminate selection bias from the data in order to assess the actual treatment effect of the mfp according to the result of logistic regression applied to the matched data mfp apparently did not have significant effects on ipo success and bankruptcy this implies that mfp needs to allow vcs more time to evaluate smes covering qualitative aspects as well it is expected that this change of structure can provide better performance of mfp in terms of ipo success and bankruptcy of matched smes

international transfers of managers in north american and european mnes global scale mnes require a network of managers to direct and control operations around the world managerial resources for these jobs can be managers from the headquarters country host and third countries international transfers can be for specific staffing needs for management development and for organization development the general hypothesis examined in this paper was the global scale mnes would operate in a regio or geocentric fashion with full integration of the world pool of managerial resources for all international transfers case studies were done on two north american and two european mnes in the chemicals and electronics industries world wide transfers and consequent career opportunities were found in all cases for managers from headquarters countries regional transfers and careers were possible for host and third country managers in regio centric mnes but only national careers were possible in a poly centric mne temporary transfers to world or regional headquarters for management development were found for host and third country managers but transfers for organization development were for headquarters nationals no consistent differences in uses of transfers or international careers were found between north american and european mnes

between development and social policies the impact of european structural funds in objective 1 regions rodriguez pose a and fratesi u 2004 between development and social policies the impact of european structural funds in objective 1 regions reg studies 38 97 113 european regional support has grown in parallel with european integration the funds targeted at achieving greater economic and social cohesion and reducing disparities within the european union eu have more than doubled in relative terms since the end of the 1980s making development policies the second most important policy area in the eu the majority of the development funds have been earmarked for objective 1 regions i e regions where gdp per capita is below the 75 threshold of the eu average however the european development policies have come under increasing criticism based on two facts the lack of upward mobility of assisted regions and the absence of regional convergence this paper assesses using cross sectional and panel data analyses the failure so far of european development policies to fulfil their objective of de

managerial incentives and investment in r d in large multiproduct firms incentives for division managers in large firms affect their risk orientation and thus their decisions to invest in r d this paper reviews theory and hypothesizes that division managers incentive compensation that is based on financial performance is negatively related to risk taking as measured by r d intensity results of a study of 184 major u s firms suggest that incentives based on short term annual division financial performance are negatively related to total firm r d intensity after controlling for industry r d intensity firm diversification size and group structure furthermore the results suggest that an emphasis on long term financial incentives may mitigate the negative relationship between these incentives and r d intensity but does not promote risk taking the results suggest the importance of emphasizing strategic controls evaluating division managers based on operational understanding of strategies proposed strategic criteria as opposed to the use of financial controls evalua

random effects logistic regression model for default prediction of technology credit guarantee fund korean government has been funding the small and medium enterprises sme with superior technology based on scorecard however high default rate of funded smes has been reported in order to effectively manage such governmental fund it is important to develop accurate scoring model for smes in this paper we provide a random effects logistic regression model to predict the default of funded smes based on both financial and non financial factors advantage of such a random effects model lies in the ability of accommodating not only the individual characteristics of each sme but also the uncertainty that cannot be explained by such individual factors it is expected that our study can contribute to effective management of government funds by proposing the prediction models for defaults of funded smes

carbon market risks and rewards firm perceptions of cdm investment decisions in brazil and india the carbon market experiences of brazil and india represent policy success stories under several criteria a careful evaluation however reveals challenges to market development that should be addressed in order to make the rollout of a post 2012 cdm more effective we conducted firm level interviews covering 82 cdm plants in the sugar and cement sectors in brazil and india focusing on how individual managers understood the potential benefits and risks of undertaking clean development mechanism cdm investments our results indicate that the cdm operates in a far more complex way in practice than that of simply adding a marginal increment to a project s internal rate of return our results indicate the following first although anticipated revenue played a central role in most managers decisions to pursue cdm investments there was no standard practice to account for financial benefits of cdm investments second some managers identified non financial reputational factors as their primary motivation for pursuing cdm projects and third under fluctuating regulatory regimes with real immediate costs and uncertain cdm revenue managers favored projects that often did not require carbon revenue to be viable the post 2012 cdm architecture can benefit from incorporating these insights and in particular reassess goals for strict additionality and mechanisms for achieving it

portfolio optimization of renewable energy assets hydro wind and photovoltaic energy in the regulated market in brazil abstract this study proposes a methodology for risk analysis and portfolio optimization of power generation assets with hydro wind and solar power considering the regulated contracting environment and the mechanism for reallocation of energy in brazil innovative stochastic models are used to generate synthetic time series for the random variables water inflow wind speed solar irradiance temperature of the photovoltaic panel and average generation capacity of the mechanism for reallocation of energy the simulation is implemented using the monte carlo method associated with a cholesky decomposition an economic approach is presented taking into account taxation and financing as well as the markowitz portfolio theory the results show that the initial correlation between the energy resources is altered by the cash flow model and mainly by the debt in the diversification process the complementarity between sources helps to reduce the economic risk the increase in debt increases the correlation decreases the return and risk and consequently affects the diversification process and economic results the mechanism for reallocation of energy significantly reduces the hydroelectric economic risk and increases the financial return which directly benefits the formation of portfolios

conceptualizing energy security abstract energy security 1 is one of the main targets of energy policy however the term has not been clearly defined which makes it hard to measure and difficult to balance against other policy objectives we review the multitude of definitions of energy security they can be characterized according to the sources of risk the scope of the impacts and the severity filters in the form of the speed size sustention spread singularity and sureness of impacts using a stylized case study for three european countries we illustrate how the selection of conceptual boundaries along these dimensions determines the outcome this can be avoided by more clearly separating between security of supply and other policy objectives this leads us to the definition of energy security as the continuity of energy supplies relative to demand

energy planning and modern portfolio theory a review abstract modern portfolio theory mpt stands as a widely accepted methodology to meet the challenges associated with the definition of energy planning for a particular territory or region energy planning is thus framed as an investment selection problem mpt is characterized by having a wider capacity and conceptual richness than the other previously used methodologies such as the individual least cost alternative the portfolio approach is based on solving for an objective function that seeks to minimize either the cost or the risk of the portfolio subject to different constraints considering that real electricity generation assets can be defined in terms of cost or return and economic risk for each alternative technology the relevant portfolios are the result of solving the optimization model to determine the efficient cost risk frontier the work presented here consists of an exhaustive review of the literature in relation to the application of mpt methodology to the field of energy planning and electricity production a new classification is proposed from a financial perspective of the selection of investments from the preceding studies it delves deeper into the explanation of the limits to the methodology and into the concept of risk which is key from both a financial and an energy perspective the main methodological contributions found in the literature are examined that are aimed at improving the capacity of the model and adjusting it to the reality of the electricity market finally conclusions are provided from the works analyzed in terms of renewable technologies and the policy implications derived from them in most studies a preference has been shown for the inclusion of renewable technologies in the efficient portfolios however in order to implement the decision to increase the share of renewable technologies greater flexibility in the interconnection capacity between states and in storage capacity is needed

stepping up but back how eu policy reform fails to meet the needs of renewable energy actors the european commission ec has been active in setting european policy and driving forward penetration of renewable energy re across member states ms recent challenging economic conditions increases in electricity price for most european consumers an entrenched company oligopoly and the lightening of re subsidies have all shifted the ec to a new realism for energy and climate policy the 2014 ec communication on climate and energy 2020 2030 removes ms level re targets in favour of a single eu wide target 27 re supply and phasing out of subsidies for mature re by 2020 2030 the purpose of this research is to determine if the recent policy moves by the ec are concomitant with what re actors need in terms of eu policy reform a questionnaire was implemented with expert professional energy actors across all ms of the eu in order to determine priority factors limiting re penetration key issues for re in the eu and the specific policy areas which needed reform by the ec the questionnaire was implemented just before production of the aforementioned 2014 communication and included 108 respondents respondents replied to questions related to the significance re implementation issues impact of the economic crisis on re implementation need for further eu national policy on re the main areas to target ec reform were identified as well as the policy areas the most wanted by re actors conclusions include i the lack of engagement of the sample of re actors with eu level policy with more of a focus on national and global agendas ii a relatively coherent view in actors of the differential role of ec and ms governments and iii a failure in recent ec policy to deal with the most important perceived policy challenges in the re sector clarity and stability of subsidies and financial instruments

systemic risk reinsurance and the failure of crop insurance markets without affordable reinsurance private crop insurance markets are doomed to fail because systemic weather effects induce high correlation among farm level yields defeating insurer efforts to pool risks across farms using an empirical model of the u s crop insurance market we find that u s crop insurer portfolios are twenty to fifty times riskier than they would be otherwise if yields were stochastically independent across farms we also find that area yield reinsurance contracts would enable crop insurers to cover most of their systemic crop loss risk reducing their risk exposure to levels typically experienced by more conventional property liability insurers copyright 1997 oxford university press

can the risks of the kyoto mechanisms be reduced through portfolio diversification evidence from the swedish aij program through joint implementationand the clean development mechanism reductionsof greenhouse gas emissions achieved abroad canbe credited to domestic firms however thetechnical economic and political risksinvolved may prevent the private sector frominvesting in such projects this paperdescribes three types of risks which emissionreduction projects are exposed to eleven pilotprojects carried out under the activitiesimplemented jointly aij program and financedby sweden are evaluated actual project costsare found to exceed projected costs in allcases annual emission reductions also deviatefrom their expected values and vary stronglyover time supporting the hypothesis that suchprojects are risky business the riskmanagement tool portfolio diversification isapplied to a sample of swedish aij projects the results indicate that diversification canreduce the risks of greenhouse gas mitigationprojects significantly thus carbon funds area promising way of lowering the risks of thekyoto mechanisms for private sector investors

the european low carbon mix for 2030 the role of renewable energy sources in an environmentally and socially efficient approach abstract the european union s commitment to increase the presence of renewable energy sources in its portfolio has resulted in better levels of security of supply competitiveness and environmental sustainability this proposed work reviews european legislation regarding the promotion of renewable energy sources as well as the bibliography that applies portfolio theory methodology to energy policy this double revision gives rise to the question whether the share limits of renewable energy technologies anticipated for the european power mix in 2020 and 2030 are actually efficient the optimization model corrects for the attractiveness of renewable energy sources as opposed to conventional sources in terms of costs risks and pollutant gas emissions this model successfully and explicitly identifies the positive effect on the environment that is represented by the inclusion of renewable energy sources in the portfolio the goal is to minimize the cost and risk that society must bear to produce electricity in addition to compliance with european pollutant gas co2 so2 nox and pm objectives the results for 2020 indicate that the eu would not be able to reach its emissions reduction goals with the anticipated shares of renewable energy sources in 2030 achieving a lower emissions portfolio would not mean taking on greater costs although it would be necessary to assume a greater level of risk the anticipated shares of renewable energy sources 5 and fossil fuel technologies 15 would be overdimensioned in the forecasts analyzed in terms of technologies both nuclear and wind energy stand out both with shares above 20 on the contrary biomass and solar photovoltaic energies would be unnecessary in order to reach efficiency in any case one thing is clear the eu would be the master of its energy future if it prioritizes the importance of renewable energy sources in its efficient portfolio

the probability of bankruptcy a comparison of empirical predictions and theoretical models abstract the last decade has witnessed the development of many empirical models to predict corporate bankruptcy and of several bankruptcy theories this paper reviews and integrates these two strands of research and finds a substantial amount of overlap however the overlap is not perfect the paper presents a new theory of bankruptcy that appears to fit the data better the paper also suggests directions for future empirical and theoretical research