IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/enepol/v114y2018icp211-220.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Cost overruns and delays in energy megaprojects: How big is big enough?

Author

Listed:
  • Callegari, C.
  • Szklo, A.
  • Schaeffer, R.

Abstract

Power generation megaprojects are central in energy planning and policy. However, many megaprojects fail to deliver the scale and efficiency aspirations initially expected. The purpose of this paper is to estimate the probability distribution function of cost overruns and delays in the construction of power generation projects, with a particular focus on mega hydroelectric dams recently built in Brazil. Results show that construction costs were, on average, 97.53% above the initial estimates. The distribution that best fits the hydroelectric power plants costs overruns is the gamma distribution. For the delays, the construction completion time had an average increase of 74.28%, or 3.5 years. The distribution that best fits the hydroelectric plants delays is the lognormal distribution. The essential statistical message obtained in this paper is that megaprojects fail to deliver the economies of scale embedded in large projects because the exposure to risk is disproportionate to the financial economies they can generate. Decision makers should carefully evaluate whether "bigger is better".

Suggested Citation

  • Callegari, C. & Szklo, A. & Schaeffer, R., 2018. "Cost overruns and delays in energy megaprojects: How big is big enough?," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 114(C), pages 211-220.
  • Handle: RePEc:eee:enepol:v:114:y:2018:i:c:p:211-220
    DOI: 10.1016/j.enpol.2017.11.059
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0301421517308042
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.enpol.2017.11.059?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. S.Z.S. Tabish & Kumar Neeraj Jha, 2011. "Identification and evaluation of success factors for public construction projects," Construction Management and Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 29(8), pages 809-823, August.
    2. Sovacool, Benjamin K. & Gilbert, Alex & Nugent, Daniel, 2014. "Risk, innovation, electricity infrastructure and construction cost overruns: Testing six hypotheses," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 74(C), pages 906-917.
    3. Awojobi, Omotola & Jenkins, Glenn P., 2015. "Were the hydro dams financed by the World Bank from 1976 to 2005 worthwhile?," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 86(C), pages 222-232.
    4. Cook, David & Davíðsdóttir, Brynhildur & Kristófersson, Daði Már, 2016. "Energy projects in Iceland – Advancing the case for the use of economic valuation techniques to evaluate environmental impacts," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 94(C), pages 104-113.
    5. Awojobi, Omotola & Jenkins, Glenn P., 2016. "Managing the cost overrun risks of hydroelectric dams: An application of reference class forecasting techniques," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 63(C), pages 19-32.
    6. Bent Flyvbjerg, 2009. "Survival of the unfittest: why the worst infrastructure gets built--and what we can do about it," Oxford Review of Economic Policy, Oxford University Press and Oxford Review of Economic Policy Limited, vol. 25(3), pages 344-367, Autumn.
    7. Mr. Christian Schmieder & Mr. Tidiane Kinda & Mr. Nassim N. Taleb & Ms. Elena Loukoianova & Mr. Elie Canetti, 2012. "A New Heuristic Measure of Fragility and Tail Risks: Application to Stress Testing," IMF Working Papers 2012/216, International Monetary Fund.
    8. Sovacool, Benjamin K. & Bulan, L.C., 2011. "Behind an ambitious megaproject in Asia: The history and implications of the Bakun hydroelectric dam in Borneo," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 39(9), pages 4842-4859, September.
    9. Benjamin K. Sovacool & Christopher J. Cooper, 2013. "The Governance of Energy Megaprojects," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 15106.
    10. Bent Flyvbjerg, 2014. "What You Should Know About Megaprojects, and Why: An Overview," Papers 1409.0003, arXiv.org.
    11. Ansar, Atif & Flyvbjerg, Bent & Budzier, Alexander & Lunn, Daniel, 2014. "Should we build more large dams? The actual costs of hydropower megaproject development," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 69(C), pages 43-56.
    12. Delignette-Muller, Marie Laure & Dutang, Christophe, 2015. "fitdistrplus: An R Package for Fitting Distributions," Journal of Statistical Software, Foundation for Open Access Statistics, vol. 64(i04).
    13. Fearnside, Philip M., 2016. "Environmental and Social Impacts of Hydroelectric Dams in Brazilian Amazonia: Implications for the Aluminum Industry," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 77(C), pages 48-65.
    14. Marie Laure Delignette-Muller & Christophe Dutang, 2015. "fitdistrplus : An R Package for Fitting Distributions," Post-Print hal-01616147, HAL.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Diniz, Bruno Andrade & Szklo, Alexandre & Tolmasquim, Maurício T. & Schaeffer, Roberto, 2023. "Delays in the construction of power plants from electricity auctions in Brazil," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 175(C).
    2. Kosai, Shoki & Yamasue, Eiji, 2019. "Recommendation to ASEAN nuclear development based on lessons learnt from the Fukushima nuclear accident," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 129(C), pages 628-635.
    3. Simshauser, P. & Gohde, N., 2024. "3-Party Covenant Financing of ‘Semi-Regulated’ Pumped Hydro Assets," Cambridge Working Papers in Economics 2425, Faculty of Economics, University of Cambridge.
    4. Lordan-Perret, Rebecca & Bärenbold, Rebekka & Weigt, Hannes & Rosner, Robert, 2023. "An ex-ante method to verify commercial U.S. nuclear power plant decommissioning cost estimates," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 127(PB).
    5. Anuja Shaktawat & Shelly Vadhera, 2021. "Risk management of hydropower projects for sustainable development: a review," Environment, Development and Sustainability: A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Theory and Practice of Sustainable Development, Springer, vol. 23(1), pages 45-76, January.
    6. Carlos Araújo-Rey & Miguel A. Sebastián, 2021. "An Approach to the Analysis of Causes of Delays in Industrial Construction Projects through Planning and Statistical Computing," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(7), pages 1-21, April.
    7. Gumber, Anurag & Zana, Riccardo & Steffen, Bjarne, 2024. "A global analysis of renewable energy project commissioning timelines," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 358(C).
    8. Arbuckle, Evan J. & Binsted, Matthew & Davies, Evan G.R. & Chiappori, Diego V. & Bergero, Candelaria & Siddiqui, Muhammad-Shahid & Roney, Christopher & McJeon, Haewon C. & Zhou, Yuyu & Macaluso, Nick, 2021. "Insights for Canadian electricity generation planning from an integrated assessment model: Should we be more cautious about hydropower cost overruns?," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 150(C).
    9. Muhammad Haris & Qing Yang, 2023. "Investigating the Moderating Role of Political Factors on Internal Success Factors and Project Success: Empirical Evidence from Pakistan," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(11), pages 1-20, May.
    10. Portugal-Pereira, J. & Ferreira, P. & Cunha, J. & Szklo, A. & Schaeffer, R. & Araújo, M., 2018. "Better late than never, but never late is better: Risk assessment of nuclear power construction projects," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 120(C), pages 158-166.
    11. Köberle, Alexandre C. & Garaffa, Rafael & Cunha, Bruno S.L. & Rochedo, Pedro & Lucena, André F.P. & Szklo, Alexandre & Schaeffer, Roberto, 2018. "Are conventional energy megaprojects competitive? Suboptimal decisions related to cost overruns in Brazil," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 122(C), pages 689-700.
    12. Galván, Antonio & Haas, Jannik & Moreno-Leiva, Simón & Osorio-Aravena, Juan Carlos & Nowak, Wolfgang & Palma-Benke, Rodrigo & Breyer, Christian, 2022. "Exporting sunshine: Planning South America’s electricity transition with green hydrogen," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 325(C).
    13. Zhao Zhai & Ming Shan & Amos Darko & Albert P. C. Chan, 2021. "Corruption in Construction Projects: Bibliometric Analysis of Global Research," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(8), pages 1-21, April.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Jenkins, G. & Olasehinde-Williams, G. & Baurzhan, S., 2022. "Is there a net economic loss from employing reference class forecasting in the appraisal of hydropower projects?," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 159(C).
    2. Love, Peter E.D. & Ika, Lavagnon A. & Ahiaga-Dagbui, Dominic D., 2019. "On de-bunking ‘fake news’ in a post truth era: Why does the Planning Fallacy explanation for cost overruns fall short?," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 126(C), pages 397-408.
    3. Flyvbjerg, Bent & Ansar, Atif & Budzier, Alexander & Buhl, Søren & Cantarelli, Chantal & Garbuio, Massimo & Glenting, Carsten & Holm, Mette Skamris & Lovallo, Dan & Lunn, Daniel & Molin, Eric & Rønnes, 2018. "Five things you should know about cost overrun," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 118(C), pages 174-190.
    4. Ayobami Solomon Oyewo & Javier Farfan & Pasi Peltoniemi & Christian Breyer, 2018. "Repercussion of Large Scale Hydro Dam Deployment: The Case of Congo Grand Inga Hydro Project," Energies, MDPI, vol. 11(4), pages 1-30, April.
    5. Gregory, Julian, 2020. "Governance, scale, scope: A review of six South African electricity generation infrastructure megaprojects," Utilities Policy, Elsevier, vol. 66(C).
    6. Atif Ansar & Bent Flyvbjerg & Alexander Budzier & Daniel Lunn, 2016. "Big is Fragile: An Attempt at Theorizing Scale," Papers 1603.01416, arXiv.org, revised Jun 2017.
    7. Oyewo, Ayobami Solomon & Solomon, A.A. & Bogdanov, Dmitrii & Aghahosseini, Arman & Mensah, Theophilus Nii Odai & Ram, Manish & Breyer, Christian, 2021. "Just transition towards defossilised energy systems for developing economies: A case study of Ethiopia," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 176(C), pages 346-365.
    8. Brookes, Naomi J. & Locatelli, Giorgio, 2015. "Power plants as megaprojects: Using empirics to shape policy, planning, and construction management," Utilities Policy, Elsevier, vol. 36(C), pages 57-66.
    9. Anuja Shaktawat & Shelly Vadhera, 2021. "Risk management of hydropower projects for sustainable development: a review," Environment, Development and Sustainability: A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Theory and Practice of Sustainable Development, Springer, vol. 23(1), pages 45-76, January.
    10. Flyvbjerg, Bent & Bester, Dirk W., 2021. "The Cost-Benefit Fallacy: Why Cost-Benefit Analysis Is Broken and How to Fix It," Journal of Benefit-Cost Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 12(3), pages 395-419, October.
    11. Ansar, Atif & Flyvbjerg, Bent & Budzier, Alexander & Lunn, Daniel, 2014. "Should we build more large dams? The actual costs of hydropower megaproject development," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 69(C), pages 43-56.
    12. Costa, Francisco J M & Szerman, Dimitri & Assunção, Juliano, 2018. "Local Economic Impacts of Hydroelectric Power Plants: Evidence from Brazil," SocArXiv kzhs6, Center for Open Science.
    13. Sovacool, Benjamin K. & Enevoldsen, Peter, 2015. "One style to build them all: Corporate culture and innovation in the offshore wind industry," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 86(C), pages 402-415.
    14. Schulte, Benedikt & Sachs, Anna-Lena, 2020. "The price-setting newsvendor with Poisson demand," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 283(1), pages 125-137.
    15. Avanzi, Benjamin & Taylor, Greg & Wang, Melantha & Wong, Bernard, 2021. "SynthETIC: An individual insurance claim simulator with feature control," Insurance: Mathematics and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 100(C), pages 296-308.
    16. Al-Noor Abdullah & Sanzidur Rahman, 2021. "Social Impacts of a Mega-Dam Project as Perceived by Local, Resettled and Displaced Communities: A Case Study of Merowe Dam, Sudan," Economies, MDPI, vol. 9(4), pages 1-32, September.
    17. Shirley, Rebekah G. & Word, Jettie, 2018. "Rights, rivers and renewables: Lessons from hydropower conflict in Borneo on the role of cultural politics in energy planning for Small Island Developing States," Utilities Policy, Elsevier, vol. 55(C), pages 189-199.
    18. Plakandaras, Vasilios & Papadimitriou, Theophilos & Gogas, Periklis, 2019. "Forecasting transportation demand for the U.S. market," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 126(C), pages 195-214.
    19. K. G. Reddy & M. G. M. Khan, 2020. "stratifyR: An R Package for optimal stratification and sample allocation for univariate populations," Australian & New Zealand Journal of Statistics, Australian Statistical Publishing Association Inc., vol. 62(3), pages 383-405, September.
    20. Chen, Shang & He, Liang & Cao, Yinxuan & Wang, Runhong & Wu, Lianhai & Wang, Zhao & Zou, Yufeng & Siddique, Kadambot H.M. & Xiong, Wei & Liu, Manshuang & Feng, Hao & Yu, Qiang & Wang, Xiaoming & He, J, 2021. "Comparisons among four different upscaling strategies for cultivar genetic parameters in rainfed spring wheat phenology simulations with the DSSAT-CERES-Wheat model," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 258(C).

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:enepol:v:114:y:2018:i:c:p:211-220. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/enpol .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.