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Environmental Impact Assessment and Investment under Uncertainty: An Application to Power Grid Interconnection

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Author Info
Jean-Daniel Saphores
Éric Gravel
Jean-Thomas Bernard
Abstract

We consider a firm that must undergo a costly and time-consuming regulatory process before making an irreversible, lagged investment whose value varies randomly. We analyze two cases: regulatory approval is valid forever or it expires after some time. We apply our model to Hydro Québec's project of building a 1250 megawatts interconnection with Ontario. We find that the firm may start the regulatory process earlier if regulatory approval is valid long enough or if uncertainty is high enough; it postpones it otherwise. When to start the regulatory process and when to invest depend on the duration of the regulatory green light.

Nous considérons une firme qui doit se soumettre à un processus réglementaire long et coûteux avant de réaliser un investissement irréversible. La valeur de cet investissement est aléatoire et un délai de mise en service est nécessaire. Nous analysons deux cas : l'approbation réglementaire est toujours valide ou elle a une durée finie. Nous appliquons notre modèle à un projet d'Hydro Québec : la construction d'une interconnexion de 1250 mégawatts avec l'Ontario. Nous montrons que la firme débute le processus réglementaire plus tôt si l'approbation réglementaire est suffisamment longue ou si l'incertitude est assez élevée; autrement elle le retarde. Ces décisions dépendent aussi de la durée de l'approbation réglementaire.

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Paper provided by CIRANO in its series CIRANO Working Papers with number 2003s-29.

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Date of creation: 01 May 2003
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Handle: RePEc:cir:cirwor:2003s-29

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Related research
Keywords: regulation; uncertainty; irreversibility; real options; interconnections; réglementation; incertitude; irréversibilité; options réelles; interconnexions;

Find related papers by JEL classification:
D81 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Criteria for Decision-Making under Risk and Uncertainty
L51 - Industrial Organization - - Regulation and Industrial Policy - - - Economics of Regulation

This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

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  1. Milne, Alistair & Whalley, A Elizabeth, 2000. "'Time to build, option value and investment decisions': a comment," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 56(2), pages 325-332, May. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  2. Bar-Ilan, Avner & Strange, William C, 1996. "Investment Lags," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 86(3), pages 610-22, June. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  3. McDonald, Robert & Siegel, Daniel, 1986. "The Value of Waiting to Invest," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, MIT Press, vol. 101(4), pages 707-27, November. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  4. Hendrik Bessembinder & Michael L. Lemmon, 2002. "Equilibrium Pricing and Optimal Hedging in Electricity Forward Markets," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 57(3), pages 1347-1382, 06. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  5. Majd, Saman & Pindyck, Robert S., 1987. "Time to build, option value, and investment decisions," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 18(1), pages 7-27, March. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  6. Martzoukos, Spiros H. & Teplitz-Sembitzky, Witold, 1992. "Optimal timing of transmission line investments in the face of uncertain demand : An option valuation approach," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 14(1), pages 3-9, January. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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