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Evaluating the power investment options with uncertainty in climate policy

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  • Yang, Ming
  • Blyth, William
  • Bradley, Richard
  • Bunn, Derek
  • Clarke, Charlie
  • Wilson, Tom
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    Abstract

    This paper uses a real options approach (ROA) for analysing the effects of government climate policy uncertainty on private investors' decision-making in the power sector. It presents an analysis undertaken by the International Energy Agency (IEA) that implements ROA within a dynamic programming approach for technology investment choice. Case studies for gas, coal and nuclear power investment are undertaken with the model. Illustrative results from the model indicate four broad conclusions: i) climate change policy risks can become large if there is only a short time between a future climate policy event such as post-2012 and the time when the investment decision is being made; ii) the way in which CO2 and fuel price variations feed through to electricity price variations is an important determinant of the overall investment risk that companies will face; iii) investment risks vary according to the technology being considered, with nuclear power appearing to be particularly exposed to fuel and CO2 price risks under various assumptions; and iv) the government will be able to reduce investors' risks by implementing long-term (say 10 years) rather than short-term (say 5 years) climate change policy frameworks. Contributions of this study include: (1) having created a step function with stochastic volume of jump at a particular time to simulate carbon price shock under a particular climate policy event; (2) quantifying the implicit risk premium of carbon price uncertainty to investors in new capacity; (3) evaluating carbon price risk alongside energy price risk in investment decision-making; and (4) demonstrating ROA to be a useful tool to quantify the impacts of climate change policy uncertainty on power investment.

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    Bibliographic Info

    Article provided by Elsevier in its journal Energy Economics.

    Volume (Year): 30 (2008)
    Issue (Month): 4 (July)
    Pages: 1933-1950

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    Handle: RePEc:eee:eneeco:v:30:y:2008:i:4:p:1933-1950

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    Web page: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/eneco

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    References

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    Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
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    1. Lin, Tyrone T. & Ko, Chuan-Chuan & Yeh, Hsin-Ni, 2007. "Applying real options in investment decisions relating to environmental pollution," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 35(4), pages 2426-2432, April.
    2. Kuper, Gerhard H. & Soest, Daan P. van, 2003. "Does oil price uncertainty affect energy use?," CCSO Working Papers 200306, University of Groningen, CCSO Centre for Economic Research.
    3. Geoffrey Rothwell, 2006. "A Real Options Approach to Evaluating New Nuclear Power Plants," The Energy Journal, International Association for Energy Economics, vol. 0(Number 1), pages 87-54.
    4. Laurikka, Harri, 2006. "Option value of gasification technology within an emissions trading scheme," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 34(18), pages 3916-3928, December.
    5. Myers, Stewart C., 1977. "Determinants of corporate borrowing," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 5(2), pages 147-175, November.
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    Citations

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    Cited by:
    1. John Foster & Liam Wagner & Phil Wild & Junhua Zhao & Lucas Skoofa & Craig Froome, 2011. "Market and Economic Modelling of the Intelligent Grid: End of Year Report 2009," Energy Economics and Management Group Working Papers 09, School of Economics, University of Queensland, Australia.
    2. Hervé-Mignucci, Morgan, 2011. "Rôle du signal prix du carbone sur les décisions d'investissement des entreprises," Open Access publications from Université Paris-Dauphine urn:hdl:123456789/8200, Université Paris-Dauphine.
    3. Tolis, Athanasios I. & Rentizelas, Athanasios A., 2011. "An impact assessment of electricity and emission allowances pricing in optimised expansion planning of power sector portfolios," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 88(11), pages 3791-3806.
    4. Brauneis, Alexander & Mestel, Roland & Palan, Stefan, 2013. "Inducing low-carbon investment in the electric power industry through a price floor for emissions trading," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 53(C), pages 190-204.
    5. Blyth, William & Bunn, Derek & Kettunen, Janne & Wilson, Tom, 2009. "Policy interactions, risk and price formation in carbon markets," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 37(12), pages 5192-5207, December.
    6. Bazilian, Morgan & Hobbs, Benjamin F. & Blyth, Will & MacGill, Iain & Howells, Mark, 2011. "Interactions between energy security and climate change: A focus on developing countries," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 39(6), pages 3750-3756, June.
    7. Svensson, Elin & Berntsson, Thore & Strömberg, Ann-Brith & Patriksson, Michael, 2009. "An optimization methodology for identifying robust process integration investments under uncertainty," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 37(2), pages 680-685, February.
    8. Nemet, Gregory F., 2010. "Robust incentives and the design of a climate change governance regime," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 38(11), pages 7216-7225, November.
    9. Massol, O. & Tchung-Ming, S., 2012. "Joining the CCS Club! Insights from a Northwest European CO2 Pipeline Project," Working Papers 12/10, Department of Economics, City University London.
    10. John Foster & Liam Wagner & Phil Wild & Junhua Zhao & Lucas Skoofa & Craig Froome & Ariel Liebman, 2011. "Market and Economic Modelling of the Intelligent Grid: End of Year Report 2010," Energy Economics and Management Group Working Papers 10, School of Economics, University of Queensland, Australia.
    11. Tolis, Athanasios & Doukelis, Aggelos & Tatsiopoulos, Ilias, 2010. "Stochastic interest rates in the analysis of energy investments: Implications on economic performance and sustainability," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 87(8), pages 2479-2490, August.

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