Electricity prices in a competitive market: a preliminary analysis of the deregulated Thai electricity industry

The electricity industry throughout the world is currently undergoing a significant transition towards restructuring and deregulation. Following this new legislation, Thailand has initiated an institutional and structural reform with a belief that this could be the best way forward for the Thai electricity supply industry (ESI) to improve efficiency, lower electricity prices, and tackle financial debts. This paper presents an analysis of the extent to which prices for generation services in a competitive market may differ from regulated electricity prices, if competitive prices are based on marginal costs and regulated prices are based on average costs, by using Thailand as a case study.     

徐州经济技术开发区低碳产业发展研究

低碳经济在世界环境及能源安全危机大背景下应运而生,本文基于低碳产业发展理念,运用库兹涅兹法则及钱纳里经济发展阶段判定等方法,对徐州经济技术开发区产业发展现状及相关数据进行分析。试图通过优化开发区产业结构,提高产业布局的合理性,降低产业发展成本,达到节能减排、发展经济的目标,实现产业园区的低碳发展,为徐州低碳城市建设奠定基础。     

钢结构焊接防变形措施的研究

钢结构因其出色的抗震性能,现已被越来越广泛地用于建筑行业。其中H型钢是钢结构行业中最普遍的构件形式,其受力性能出色而构件形式相对简单,因而被广泛地用于钢结构的各个行业,其中建筑行业尤为突出。如何使H型钢生产效率得到提升,这是所有钢结构生产厂家共同面临又急需解决的课题。本文介绍了一种能有效防止H型钢焊接变形的新措施,它在防止H型钢焊接变形的同时提高H型钢整体的生产效率,大大缩短构件校正的时间,同时节省大量的人工和辅材,使构件整体的生产效益得到提高。     

A process approach in measuring quality costs of construction projects: model development

One of the most effective tools for evaluating the success of a quality management programme is the measurement of quality costs (prevention, appraisal and failure costs). The application of the concept of quality costs originated in the manufacturing industry in the early 1950s. As increasing attention has been given to improving the overall quality in the construction process since the early 1980s, the application of total quality management (TQM) practices in the construction industry has gained much popularity. A systematic approach is needed for measuring quality costs, especially in the construction industry, due to the great number and complexity of activities involved in a typical project. This paper describes how a simple methodology can be used to capture quality costs in construction projects. Pre-existing models for capturing construction quality costs, by Davis, by Abdul-Rahman, by Low and Yeo and by others, recognize quality cost components but do not address the causes or sources of unwanted deviations. This paper proposes an alternative approach, based on the process cost model and in conformance with BS6143 (1992), which is thought to better facilitate the fundamental goal of TQM, i.e. continual process improvement. A number of professionals involved in construction quality management were interviewed and responded favourably to the practicality of the proposed framework in the construction context.     

Planning for claims: an ethnography of industry culture

Claims by contractors for additional payments have been identified by commentators as a major source of difficulty in the industry. Ethnographic research with industry members reveals some key features of planning practices that underlie such events. Claims are sometimes planned at tender stage and sometimes during the course of a project. One practice at tender stage is a pricing technique that minimizes the tender price while maximizing the out‐turn cost of a contract by exploiting mistakes in the bill of quantities. Another is the programming of work to maximize its vulnerability to delay. More reactive techniques may be employed during the course of the project, often to make up for an unanticipated increase in costs. These and other similar practices may be reported as features of an integrated culture, defined in such a way as to encompass activity and reject Cartesian dualism. The unique adequacy requirements of methods are suitable criteria for the evaluation of such reports. The claims culture arises from economic conditions in the industry, which include low entry barriers and competitive tendering. However, removal of these conditions alone cannot guarantee that the practices will cease.     

Applying social sciences to inspire behavioural change in the construction sector: an experimental study

In several reports, the construction industry has been criticized for inefficiencies, errors and increasing costs. Although the industry’s critics and researchers implicitly call for a change in human behaviour, this is seldom explicitly problematized by any of them. It is rather seen as a natural consequence of the suggested measures for improvements. Researchers have begun to question if the influence of human psychology has not been underestimated in the present approach. After a review of different psychological theories an action research investigation of how psychological factors might contribute to the recurring problems in the construction sector and to the difficulties of changing it is carried out. An intervention method has been developed to counteract the tendency of various psychological functions that can distort information. It was found that the problems professionals are experiencing dramatically differ from those expressed in some critical reports. During the process, the professionals discovered their own role in the problem scenario. This shows a way to pay more attention to human/psychological issues in action design within the construction context, and what can happen when this is done.     

Using optimisation for integrated water network management

The water industry has undergone radical change in the late 1980s and changes continue apace. We have been, and will continue to be, under increasing pressure to reduce costs and increase service within a framework where regulations are becoming tighter and demanding more information to achieve and substantiate performance. The major challenge will lie with the leaders of the industry. They have to achieve the right attitude, management technique and technical excellence to meet the requirements of change and to create adaptable organizations that can manage the challenges of change in a positive and proactive way. Cultural change has started but has a long way to go. We must overcome the traditional attitude of many water suppliers, which has typically been one of the ‘professional stewardship’ of a resource in which they supply water in the way they believe to be best. This must change and is changing to a more commercially minded management which is ‘customer centred’ rather than ‘product centred’. We must realize that our organizations manage a complex asset base which has to work towards strictly defined objectives of service quality, operational efficiency and regulatory requirements, all of which, as time goes on, are influenced more and more by substantial external forces.     

全国碳市场建设现状及水泥行业应对措施探讨

建材行业二氧化碳量排放的65%～67%来自水泥制造业,工艺环节的排放又占到水泥制造业二氧化碳排放的60%以上,面对全国碳市场即将于今年启动,水泥熟料作为首批纳入行业,基准值确定与碳配额的分配将直接关系到企业的履约成本。企业通过转变原料、能源消费方式,加大节能减排新技术的推行力度,结合碳资产的有效管理,不仅可以消除碳交易制度带来的影响,先进企业还可以做到在碳市场中有所盈利。     

价值工程在工程项目中的运用

建筑业既是传统产业，也是支柱产业。建筑企业根据自身的价值取向，应用价值工程分析企业工程投标与实施阶段的功能与成本的关系，用最低的成本实现企业的经济效益和企业的品牌效应。     

绿色建筑与城市生态环境

快速发展的经济给人们的生存环境带来了巨大的压力。合理利用有限资源,最大限度地降低对环境的影响,是整个人类社会必须关心、面对的问题。在城市建设中,发展绿色建筑,要优先考虑对自然生态环境的保护,以尽可能小的环境代价获得较快的现代化进程。只有这样,才能保证城市的可持续发展,达到在建筑业和城市建设中真正落实科学发展观。     

Tariff policy and transport costs under reciprocal dumping*

This paper proposes a framework, based on a reciprocal dumping model, that assesses the effects of tariff competition for mobile firms on the location patterns of the industry as well as welfare implications. While high transport costs encourage geographic dispersion in the industry, sufficiently low transport costs result in a core‐periphery location where nobody bears tariff burdens. We show that the world economy would be in a much better position under an international co‐ordination scheme, which differs from models proposed in previous studies.     

房地产估价方法若干问题的思考

对目前房地产估价中常用的市场法、成本法、收益法中存在的问题进行了探讨,并提出了一些改进措施,以期完善现有的估价方法,使其更好的为房地产业健康发展提供服务。     

Agency transformation and state public utility commissions

The demise of public utility commissions has been periodically predicted (sometimes hoped for). In their long history they have been attacked by critics as ineffective, inefficient, expensive, or unnecessary. Further, the demonstrated survivability of the commission concept has often been uncharitably attributed to powerful political constituencies, self-preservation maneuverings by commissioners themselves, and inertia. The implications of this article point another way. Commission regulation of public utilities has survived mainly because of continued need for social oversight of these critical industry sectors and the capacity of PUCs strategically to adapt to fundamental changes in their surroundings. Two transformational upheavals are treated here – a challenge of flexibility and responsiveness by the dramatic run-up in costs and prices in the 1970s and challenge to relevance by the policy shift to greater reliance on market competition in the 1990s – and regulation's successful accommodation to them. Viewed this way commission regulation is more in a position of “second wind” than “last breath.”     

Stakeholder perspectives on developing more adaptable buildings

Despite longstanding interest in the issue of adaptability, there has been very little research into the motives and obstacles to constructing more adaptable buildings, particularly from the perspective of the stakeholders involved in the building development process. The purpose of this study was to explore the reasons why more buildings are not constructed to be more adaptable, first through a review of the literature and then through interviews with industry stakeholders in the UK, including architects, developers, engineers, property agents and local authority planners. The literature review and stakeholder interviews revealed a wide range of motives for constructing for adaptability, such as a desire to reduce life cycle costs, to produce ‘future-proof’ buildings, and to ensure that buildings are easier to sell and let. However, the literature and interviews also revealed many obstacles to creating more adaptable buildings, including an assumption that adaptability always costs more, a lack of life cycle costing, uncertainty about the benefits of adaptability, fragmentation between industry stakeholders and short-term development models. The research highlighted the need to develop a better understanding of the costs and benefits of developing more adaptable buildings so that industry stakeholders can make more informed decisions about their buildings under conditions of uncertainty.     

Industrial configuration in an economy with low transportation costs

We examine how the spatial economy with multiple industries is shaped when interregional trade costs and intraregional commuting costs are low. All industries are characterized by increasing returns to scale and monopolistic competition, and they are differentiated by their trade costs and the degree of intra-industry competition measured by their firm numbers. We find some distinct rules in industrial location. First, at most, one industry disperses, while others agglomerate in a region according to their ratios of relative trade costs to firm numbers. Second, industries with stronger competition constitute a smaller region, while those with higher trade costs compose a larger region. The results are consistent with the classical Weberian location theory and suggest that the degree of intra-industry competition also becomes an essential factor to determine industrial location when transportation costs are small. Finally, the population differential between the regions monotonically decreases in the relative commuting cost.     

Construction ecology and metabolism: natural system analogues for a sustainable built environment

Applying the principles of sustainability to human activities ultimately must result in the scrutiny of all sectors of economic activity to assess the changes required to provide for a high quality of life for future generations. A high priority for evaluation, in the light of its impacts on environmental quality and resources, is industrial activity in general and the construction industry specifically. The construction sector consumes 40% of all extracted materials in the USA, and accounts for 30% of national energy consumption for its operation. The sustainability of this industrial sector is dependent on a fundamental shift in the way resources are used, from non-renewables to renewables, from high levels of waste to high levels of reuse and recycling, and from products based on lowest first cost to those based on life-cycle costs and full cost accounting, especially as applied to waste and emissions from the industrial processes that support construction activity. The emerging field of industrial ecology provides some insights into sustainability in the built environment or sustainable construction. Construction, like other industries, would benefit from observing the metabolic behaviour of natural systems where sustainability is built in. This paper describes a view of the construction industry based on natural systems and industrial ecology for the purpose of beginning the discovery of how to shift the construction industry and its supporting materials industries onto a path much closer to the ideals of sustainability.     

Graham Ive and the methodology of construction economics

Graham Ive’s central contribution to our methodological debate was his insistence on the firm as the analytical unit. Ive argues we should reject theories if the aspect of construction we are examining does not satisfy the assumptions of a particular theoretical model. We see this in his rejection of neoclassical economic theories in the two topics discussed in this paper: the adoption of innovations in construction; and microeconomic analysis as it relates to price determination in the market for construction. The former requires studying not just participants in the building process, but also participants in the innovation process, and the latter uses post-Keynesian pricing theory where prices are set according to mark-up procedures and vary with costs, but not directly with demand. This is in contrast to the general equilibrium, perfectly competitive price setting of neoclassical economics. Ive and his collaborators show a way towards better research in their emphasis on theory and the insistence that for construction economics the analytical units are the industry and the firm, not the project. Ive’s concern is that the processes involved in organizing the production of buildings should be seen as a distinctive and defining element of our analysis of the industry.     

Voltage control in a changing US electricity industry

As the US electricity industry is restructured, the generation, transmission, and system-control equipment and functions that maintain voltages within the appropriate ranges are being deintegrated. These changes in industry structure require new institutional rules and markets to plan for additional voltage-support capacity, to reserve capacity for future use, and to deploy capacity in real time to meet current and contingency conditions. These services can be obtained through engineering mandates or through markets. Whether the location-specific nature of voltage control will permit the creation of competitive markets is not yet known.Voltage control is accomplished by managing reactive power on an alternating-current power system. Reactive power can be produced and absorbed by both generation and transmission equipment. Reactive-power devices differ substantially in the magnitude and speed of response and in their capital costs. System operators, transmission owners, generators, customers, power marketers, and government regulators need to pay close attention to voltage control as they restructure the US electricity industry.When generators are required to supply excessive amounts of reactive power, their real-power production must be curtailed. These opportunity costs are not currently compensated for in most regions. Current tariffs are based on embedded costs. These embedded-cost tariffs average about $0.51/MWh, equivalent to $1.5 billion annually for the United States as a whole. Although this cost is low when compared with the cost of energy, it still aggregates to a significant amount of money.This paper explains why power systems require reactive power. It then examines the various types of generation and transmission resources used to supply reactive power and to control voltage. Finally it discusses how these resources are deployed and paid for in several reliability regions around the country.     

施工企业施工目标成本管理策略分析

结合某建筑施工企业,分析了公司当前成本管理存在的问题,并实践性的提出了有效提高施工目标成本管理的办法,以保证施工企业获得最大经济效益,且具有较强的现实指导意义。     

闽台建筑企业伙伴评估模式构建

近年福建省建筑业保持较快发展,呈现出建筑产值快速增长、企业规模不断扩大、施工规模大幅扩大、对外承揽市场进一步拓宽等良好态势。同时福建建筑业面临建筑产品质量较低、劳动生产率水平不高、企业经营成本高等瓶颈;而台湾建筑业在自然灾害频繁、资源短缺、劳动力不足的制约条件下历经数十年的发展,施工技术与管理水平相对成熟;在海西构建的平台上,合作、交流和促进将成为两岸建筑业共赢的途径。为了寻求两地企业合作的切入点,本文基于德尔菲专家调查法,设计了财务、顾客、经营管理、学习成长等四个一级指标、以及各一级指标相应的共计22个指标,根据对业界人士的问卷调查结果,运用层次分析法,筛选出两地企业在合作中各自对对方的需求,明确合作的目的性,以便提高合作效率。从而为两地建筑市场合作提出实质性的策略与建议。