IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/juipol/v74y2022ics0957178721001648.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Can privatization of distribution substations improve electricity reliability for non-residential customers? An application to Nepal

Author

Listed:
  • Hashemi, Majid
  • Jenkins, Glenn

Abstract

This paper takes on a novel perspective to the overloading of distribution substations by considering the common-pool characteristics of electric infrastructure capacity. Using firm- and substation-level data from Nepal, the results provide evidence of common-pool resource (CPR) problems across substations’ ownership boundaries: firms with captive substations experience fewer and shorter unplanned outages than firms connected to shared substations. Based on these findings, private investments in captive substations emerge as a coping mechanism for firms against unreliable electricity supply. A generalized cost-benefit analysis framework for such investments is developed and used to quantify the benefits to Nepalese non-residential customers.

Suggested Citation

  • Hashemi, Majid & Jenkins, Glenn, 2022. "Can privatization of distribution substations improve electricity reliability for non-residential customers? An application to Nepal," Utilities Policy, Elsevier, vol. 74(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:juipol:v:74:y:2022:i:c:s0957178721001648
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jup.2021.101331
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0957178721001648
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.jup.2021.101331?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. Carlsson, Fredrik & Demeke, Eyoual & Martinsson, Peter & Tesemma, Tewodros, 2020. "Cost of power outages for manufacturing firms in Ethiopia: A stated preference study," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 88(C).
    2. Majid Hashemi & Glenn P. Jenkins & Roop Jyoti & Aygul Ozbafli, 2018. "Evaluating the Cost to Industry of Electricity Outages," Development Discussion Papers 2018-14, JDI Executive Programs.
    3. Hunt Allcott & Allan Collard-Wexler & Stephen D. O'Connell, 2016. "How Do Electricity Shortages Affect Industry? Evidence from India," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 106(3), pages 587-624, March.
    4. Carlsson, Fredrik & Kataria, Mitesh & Lampi, Elina & Martinsson, Peter, 2021. "Past and present outage costs – A follow-up study of households’ willingness to pay to avoid power outages," Resource and Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 64(C).
    5. Abdisa, Lamessa T., 2018. "Power outages, economic cost, and firm performance: Evidence from Ethiopia," Utilities Policy, Elsevier, vol. 53(C), pages 111-120.
    6. Lamessa Tariku ABDISA, 2018. "Power Outages, its Economic Cost and Firm Performance: Evidence from Ethiopia," Departmental Working Papers 2018-01, Department of Economics, Management and Quantitative Methods at Università degli Studi di Milano.
    7. Ozbafli, Aygul & Jenkins, Glenn P., 2016. "Estimating the willingness to pay for reliable electricity supply: A choice experiment study," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 56(C), pages 443-452.
    8. Sanghvi, Arun P., 1982. "Economic costs of electricity supply interruptions : US and foreign experience," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 4(3), pages 180-198, July.
    9. Abrate, Graziano & Bruno, Clementina & Erbetta, Fabrizio & Fraquelli, Giovanni & Lorite-Espejo, Azahara, 2016. "A choice experiment on the willingness of households to accept power outages," Utilities Policy, Elsevier, vol. 43(PB), pages 151-164.
    10. LaCommare, Kristina Hamachi & Eto, Joseph H., 2006. "Cost of power interruptions to electricity consumers in the United States (US)," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 31(12), pages 1845-1855.
    11. Robin Burgess & Michael Greenstone & Nicholas Ryan & Anant Sudarshan, 2020. "The Consequences of Treating Electricity as a Right," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 34(1), pages 145-169, Winter.
    12. Pless, Jacquelyn & Fell, Harrison, 2017. "Bribes, bureaucracies, and blackouts: Towards understanding how corruption at the firm level impacts electricity reliability," Resource and Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 47(C), pages 36-55.
    13. Alberini,Anna & Steinbuks,Jevgenijs & Timilsina,Govinda R., 2020. "How Valuable is the Reliability of Residential Electricity Supply in Low-Income Countries ? Evidence from Nepal," Policy Research Working Paper Series 9311, The World Bank.
    14. Oseni, Musiliu O. & Pollitt, Michael G., 2015. "A firm-level analysis of outage loss differentials and self-generation: Evidence from African business enterprises," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 52(PB), pages 277-286.
    15. Hashemi, Majid, 2021. "The economic value of unsupplied electricity: Evidence from Nepal," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 95(C).
    16. Mohan Munasinghe & Mark Gellerson, 1979. "Economic Criteria for Optimizing Power System Reliability Levels," Bell Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 10(1), pages 353-365, Spring.
    17. Jamil, Faisal, 2013. "On the electricity shortage, price and electricity theft nexus," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 54(C), pages 267-272.
    18. Kimmich, Christian & Sagebiel, Julian, 2016. "Empowering irrigation: A game-theoretic approach to electricity utilization in Indian agriculture," Utilities Policy, Elsevier, vol. 43(PB), pages 174-185.
    19. Melville, Emilia & Christie, Ian & Burningham, Kate & Way, Celia & Hampshire, Phil, 2017. "The electric commons: A qualitative study of community accountability," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 106(C), pages 12-21.
    20. Sumir Lal, 2006. "Can Good Economics Ever Be Good Politics? Case Study of India's Power Sector," World Bank Publications - Books, The World Bank Group, number 7032, December.
    21. Robin Burgess & Michael Greenstone & Nicholas Ryan & Anant Sudarshan, 2020. "The Consequences of Treating Electricity as a Right," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 34(1), pages 145-169, Winter.
    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. Hess, David J. & Jordan, Megan L., 2023. "Demunicipalization as political process: Strategic action and the sale of municipal electric utilities in the United States," Utilities Policy, Elsevier, vol. 82(C).
    2. Guo, Dongmei & Li, Qin & Liu, Peng & Shi, Xunpeng & Yu, Jian, 2023. "Power shortage and firm performance: Evidence from a Chinese city power shortage index," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 119(C).

    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. Majid Hashemi & Glenn Jenkins, 2021. "The Economic Benefits of Mitigating the Risk of Unplanned Power Outages," Working Paper 1468, Economics Department, Queen's University.
    2. Majid Hashemi, 2021. "The Effect of Reliability Improvements on Household Electricity Consumption and Coping Behavior: A Multi-dimensional Approach," Working Paper 1469, Economics Department, Queen's University.
    3. Thomas, Douglas & Fung, Juan, 2022. "Measuring downstream supply chain losses due to power disturbances," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 114(C).
    4. Hashemi, Majid, 2021. "The economic value of unsupplied electricity: Evidence from Nepal," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 95(C).
    5. Bajo-Buenestado, Raúl, 2021. "The effect of blackouts on household electrification status: Evidence from Kenya," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 94(C).
    6. Acar, Pinar & Berk, Istemi, 2022. "Power infrastructure quality and industrial performance: A panel data analysis on OECD manufacturing sectors," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 239(PC).
    7. Jamil, Faisal & Islam, Tanweer Ul, 2023. "Outage-induced power backup choice in Pakistan," Utilities Policy, Elsevier, vol. 82(C).
    8. Brown, David P. & Muehlenbachs, Lucija, 2023. "The Value of Electricity Reliability: Evidence from Battery Adoption," Working Papers 2023-5, University of Alberta, Department of Economics.
    9. Meeks, Robyn C. & Omuraliev, Arstan & Isaev, Ruslan & Wang, Zhenxuan, 2023. "Impacts of electricity quality improvements: Experimental evidence on infrastructure investments," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 120(C).
    10. Muhammad Luqman & Mirajul Haq & Iftikhar Ahmad, 2021. "Power Outages and Technical Efficiency of Manufacturing Firms: Evidence from Selected South Asian Countries," International Journal of Energy Economics and Policy, Econjournals, vol. 11(2), pages 133-140.
    11. Mohammad Abir Shahid Chowdhury & Shuai Chuanmin & Marcela Sokolová & ABM Munibur Rahman & Ahsan Akbar & Zahid Ali & Muhammad Usman, 2021. "Unveiling the Nexus between Access to Electricity, Firm Size and SME’s Performance in Bangladesh: New Evidence Using PSM," Energies, MDPI, vol. 14(20), pages 1-16, October.
    12. Richard S. J. Tol, 2023. "Navigating the energy trilemma during geopolitical and environmental crises," Papers 2301.07671, arXiv.org.
    13. Chen, Hao & Chen, Xi & Niu, Jinye & Xiang, Mengyu & He, Weijun & Küfeoğlu, Sinan, 2021. "Estimating the marginal cost of reducing power outage durations in China: A parametric distance function approach," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 155(C).
    14. Thushyanthan Baskaran & Sonia Bhalotra & Brian Min & Yogesh Uppal, 2018. "Women legislators and economic performance," WIDER Working Paper Series wp-2018-47, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    15. Sedai, Ashish Kumar & Jamasb, Tooraj & Nepal, Rabindra & Miller, Ray, 2021. "Electrification and welfare for the marginalized: Evidence from India," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 102(C).
    16. Deutschmann, Joshua W. & Postepska, Agnieszka & Sarr, Leopold, 2021. "Measuring willingness to pay for reliable electricity: Evidence from Senegal," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 138(C).
    17. Sedai, Ashish Kumar & Vasudevan, Ramaa & Pena, Anita Alves & Miller, Ray, 2021. "Does reliable electrification reduce gender differences? Evidence from India," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 185(C), pages 580-601.
    18. Lamessa T. Abdisa & Alemu L. Hawitibo, 2021. "Firm performance under financial constraints: evidence from sub-Saharan African countries," Journal of Innovation and Entrepreneurship, Springer, vol. 10(1), pages 1-17, December.
    19. Ebrahim Endris & Andualem Kassegn, 2022. "The role of micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) to the sustainable development of sub-Saharan Africa and its challenges: a systematic review of evidence from Ethiopia," Journal of Innovation and Entrepreneurship, Springer, vol. 11(1), pages 1-18, December.
    20. Majid Hashemi & Glenn P. Jenkins & Roop Jyoti & Aygul Ozbafli, 2018. "Evaluating the Cost to Industry of Electricity Outages," Development Discussion Papers 2018-14, JDI Executive Programs.

    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:juipol:v:74:y:2022:i:c:s0957178721001648. 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: https://www.sciencedirect.com/journal/utilities-policy .

    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.