An entry and exit model on the energy-saving investment strategy with real options

This paper presents an improved decision model based on the real options approach presented by Ansar and Sparks (2009) for the firms that have not yet established energy-saving equipment under the entry and exit strategies. Furthermore, the proposed model takes account of the inevitable equipment renewal and the occurrence of unexpected events under the Poisson jump process. The timing for terminating an investment when continuous operations of that business are unprofitable is also explored to realize the optimal timing of implementing the energy-saving strategy. The future discounted benefit B follows the geometric Brownian motion with the Poisson jump process and the replacement of investment equipment. A numerical analysis is followed by a sensitivity study of various parameters to better realize their impacts on the entry and exit thresholds. The results show that for the jump case, the higher probability of occurrence of unfavorable events will result in a higher entry threshold and lower exit threshold. Investors are forced to request higher benefit thresholds to cover the higher probability of losses brought by unfavorable events.     

Speculative trading of electricity contracts in interconnected locations

We derive an investor's optimal trading strategy of electricity contracts traded in two locations joined by an interconnector. The investor employs a price model which includes the impact of her own trades. The investor's trades have a permanent impact on prices because her trading activity affects the demand of contracts in both locations. Additionally, the investor receives prices which are worse than the quoted prices as a result of the elasticity of liquidity provision of contracts. Furthermore, the investor is ambiguity averse, so she acknowledges that her model of prices may be misspecified and considers other models when devising her trading strategy. We show that as the investor's degree of ambiguity aversion increases, her trading activity decreases in both locations, and thus her inventory exposure also decreases. Finally, we show that there is a range of ambiguity aversion parameters where the Sharpe ratio of the trading strategy increases when ambiguity aversion increases.     

多维不确定性影响下的水期权交易最优策略研究

为解决来水预测不确定性和水价不确定性给用水户带来的风险对冲问题,引入对冲性的水期权交易模式,建立了以用水户期望收益最大为目标的水期权交易模型,得到了最优的期权交易策略应满足的条件,并利用二分法计算得到了最优的期权交易策略,探究了来水不确定性与水价不确定性对期权交易策略的影响。结果表明,来水预测误差和水价的波动越大,用水户的期望收益越大,最优的期权交易策略能有效降低来水预测不确定性和水价不确定性带来的风险。     

Exploring the price dynamics of CO2 emissions allowances in China's emissions trading scheme pilots

Establishing regional emissions trading scheme pilots in China is a newly transformative and explorative practice. In this paper, we examine the spot price dynamics, asymmetric clustering and regime-switching behaviors of CO₂ emissions allowances in the new China-wide emissions trading scheme (CETS) pilots using AR-GARCH, AR-TARCH and MRS-AR-GARCH models. The regional ETS pilots' design in China vary widely in their coverage thresholds, sector coverage, emissions allocation and caps setting methods, market trading rules and price stabilization provisions. Our empirical results indicate that the spot prices of regional emissions allowances exhibit significant dynamic behaviors, asymmetric leverage effects and regime-switching behaviors in the entire period considered; previous market overreactions in the Beijing, Tianjin and Guangdong pilots have stronger price clustering effects on future conditional variances than do the Shanghai and Hubei pilots. Unexpected market shocks and greater persistence in the Beijing, Tianjin and Guangdong ETS pilots display stronger market volatility and higher market risks, and their asymmetric leverage effects display a decreasing trend in the volatility of the BEA, TJEA and GDEA prices. The BEA and SHEA prices exhibit significant regime-switching behaviors, price jumps and higher volatility; in addition, the changes in the regime-switching phases are often related to the political mechanism design and the fundamental market factors. Those empirical results are beneficial for government decision-makers and market participants to strengthen risk management strategies, support emission-related investment decisions and optimize co-benefits of alternative energy-environmental policies.     

Trading wind energy on the basis of probabilistic forecasts both of wind generation and of market quantities

Wind power is not easily predictable and non‐dispatchable. Nevertheless, wind power producers are increasingly urged to participate in electricity market auctions in the same manner as conventional power producers. The aim of this paper is to propose an operational strategy for trading wind energy in liberalized electricity markets and to assess its performance. At first, the so‐called optimal quantile strategy is revisited. It is proved that without market power, i.e. under the price‐taker assumption, this strategy maximizes expected market revenues. Forecasts of wind power production, of day‐ahead and real‐time market prices and of the system imbalance are inputs to this strategy. Subsequently, constraining of the bid that maximizes the expected revenues is proposed as a way to overcome the strategy's disregard of practical limitations and, at the same time, of risk. Two constraining techniques are introduced: constraining in the decision space and in the probability space. Finally, the trade of a wind power producer is simulated in a test case for the Eastern Danish (DK‐2) price area of the Nordic Power Exchange (Nord Pool) during a 10 month period in 2008. The results of the test case show the financial benefits of the aforementioned strategy as well as the consequent interaction with the electricity market. This study will support a demonstration in the framework of the EU project ANEMOS.plus. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Futures trading with information asymmetry and OTC predominance: Another look at the volume/volatility relations in the European carbon markets

This paper constitutes the first exercise of analysing the European carbon market efficiency from a double perspective combining both nature of execution venues (screen vs. OTC trading) and their volatility/liquidity relations. Using a bivariate asymmetric GJR-GARCH model, we first document that OTC (exchange traded) trading volume shows consistent bi-(uni) directional Granger causality to our volatility estimates, consistent with greater responsiveness of the OTC (exchange traded) market to changes in market-wide (idiosyncratic) risks. Second, we report significant contemporaneous and lagged positive causality of OTC derivatives volume on spot/futures volatility confirming that the Sequential Information Arrival Hypothesis (SIAH) applies. Third, we find that the one-way causality from OTC to futures volumes is mainly driven by heterogeneous investor beliefs: trading volume provides an indication on how (private) information is dispersed and held at different levels rather than proxying information signal itself. After rejecting execution venues' substitutability, we advocate for systematic clearing and netting of OTC positions through a unique clearing house and reporting rules to identify speculation in line with Mifid (Art. 59) proposals.     

The economics of oil exploration: A probability-of-ruin approach

This paper is a first attempt at developing the pure theory of a static, but stochastic, competitive market in oil exploration. Probability-of-ruin concepts are used to generate ‘risk averse’ type behavior in the context of expected net worth maximizing firms. Market entry and exit are shown to be more complex phenomena than can be captured by a simple count of firms. It is shown that different sizes of firms specialize in different types of exploratory activity and that the exploration efforts of ‘large’ firms create the necessary preconditions for the exploratory activity of ‘small’ firms. An ‘efficiency frontier’ for exploratory firms is defined and an explanation is given of its relevance to the distribution of exploration, both geographically and by type of exploration. Stochastic market equilibrium determines not only the equilibrium number of firms, but an equilibrium distribution of firms by size of net worth. A particular case is examined where increasing exploratory effort may be accompanied by a fall in exploratory output and rising fuel prices, even under constant geological conditions. This case is relevant to the existing US exploration market.     

Emission permits and the announcement of realized emissions: Price impact,trading volume,and volatilities

This paper investigates the impact of the yearly announcement of realized emissions on the European carbon permit market. We find that this event generally leads to significant absolute abnormal returns on the event day, which are accompanied by increased trading volumes and high intraday volatilities. To the contrary, trading is particularly calm on the days before the event, as suggested by significantly lower trading volumes and volatilities. The high event-day volatility is expected by the market and incorporated in emission permit option prices. In line with these significant market reactions, we provide evidence that the emissions announcement has an outstanding information content for the market compared to other relevant news events.     

Risk–return incentives in liberalised electricity markets

We employ Monte Carlo analysis to determine the distribution of returns for various electricity generation technologies. Costs and revenues for each technology are calculated by means of a unit commitment and economic dispatch algorithm at hourly resolution. This represents a considerable contribution to the literature as costs and revenues are determined endogenously, which in turn allows the returns of midmerit and peaking plant to be examined. Market entry is determined on the basis of a heuristic while market exit is according to a predetermined retirement schedule. The results show that CCGT is the investment technology of choice for baseload-only portfolios, while OCGT proves optimal when all technologies are considered. The high capital costs of baseload generation reduce incentives to invest. The methodology can be expanded to consider random outages, revenues from scarcity prices, capacity markets and ancillary service payments.     

Trading behaviour on the continuous intraday market Elbas

Intraday markets for electricity allow for trading of energy until shortly before the period of delivery. This offers market participants a possibility to reduce their expected imbalances and to offer own unused flexibility. Because this form of distributed balancing before the period of delivery can be profitable for market participants as well as beneficial for system operations, intraday trading is expected to gain more importance in future, especially with increasing shares of variable renewable energy sources in the generation mix.So far, intraday markets are still a research field with many open questions. This paper contributes by a first analysis of intraday trades on Elbas, one of the European intraday markets. The analysis gives a detailed picture on trading activity and price development and is intended to improve understanding of continuous intraday trading.Findings include that trading activity differs significantly between price zones, that most trades occur in the last hours before gate closure and that market participants have to handle substantial price variations during the trading period. The paper also investigates the imbalance settlement rules in the Nordic countries and studies which effects one- and two-price imbalance settlement systems have on the market participants' profitability of intraday trading.     

Environmental and economic benefits resulting from citizens’ participation in CO2 emissions trading: An efficient alternative solution to the voluntary compensation of CO2 emissions

Over the last few months in the emerging and lucrative carbon project market, a growing number of organizations have proposed to offset citizens’ greenhouse gas emissions. The target of these carbon-offset initiatives is to satisfy the increasing demand of individuals wishing to take part in the fight against climate change. In this paper, we review and criticize these carbon-offsetting programs in general terms. We then propose an alternative that, in our opinion, should prove to be a better solution for citizens who are willing to pay for protecting the environment. This alternative is to organize citizens’ participation in carbon emissions trading on a large scale in order to purchase and retire (destroy) CO₂ permits. To do so, a benevolent Regulator or non-governmental organization must correct certain CO₂ emissions market failures; this particularly concerns the high transaction costs, which represent an entry barrier and prevent citizens from purchasing and withholding permits. Based on theoretical findings, we demonstrate that implementing citizens’ participation in emissions trading is an economically efficient and a morally preferable option.     

Trading wind power through physically settled options and short‐term electricity markets

Wind power producers participating in today's electricity markets face significant variability in revenue streams, with potential high losses mostly due to wind's limited predictability and the intermittent nature of the generated electricity. In order to further expand wind power generation despite such challenges, it is important to maximize its market value and move decisively towards economically sustainable and financially viable asset management. In this paper, we introduce a decision‐making framework based on stochastic optimization that allows wind power producers to hedge their position in the market by trading physically settled options in futures markets in conjunction with their participation in the short‐term electricity markets. The proposed framework relies on a series of two‐stage stochastic optimization models that identify a combined trading strategy for wind power producers actively participating in both financial and day‐ahead electricity markets. The proposed models take into consideration penalties from potential deviations between day‐ahead market offers and real‐time operation and incorporates different preferences of risk aversion, enabling a trade‐off between the expected profit and its variability. Empirical analysis based on data from the Nordic region illustrates high efficiency of the stochastic model and reveals increased revenues for both risk neutral and risk averse wind producers opting for combined strategies.     

Potential of trading wind power as regulation services in the California short-term electricity market

A short-term electricity market is usually composed of the energy market and ancillary service market. However, wind power is not allowed to be traded in ancillary service markets although it has been proven technically feasible to be regulation services. This paper aims to explore the market potential of trading wind power as regulation services in the California electricity market. A model for wind power trade in the day-ahead (DA) market is established considering the uncertainties of market prices and wind power. An optimal trading strategy for wind power producers is derived by using an analytical algorithm. Trading wind power as regulation is tested by using actual data and the impacts of market control on the market outcome are discussed. The results show that, based on the current framework of the California electricity market, wind power producers can earn much more money if they bid in the DA energy and regulation markets than if they only bid in the DA energy market. The results also show that the potential to enhance profit for wind power producers is larger in the regulation down market than in the regulation up market.     

Optimal wind power deployment in Europe—A portfolio approach

Geographic diversification of wind farms can smooth out the fluctuations in wind power generation and reduce the associated system balancing and reliability costs. The paper uses historical wind production data from five European countries (Austria, Denmark, France, Germany, and Spain) and applies the Mean-Variance Portfolio theory to identify cross-country portfolios that minimise the total variance of wind production for a given level of production. Theoretical unconstrained portfolios show that countries (Spain and Denmark) with the best wind resource or whose size contributes to smoothing out the country output variability dominate optimal portfolios. The methodology is then elaborated to derive optimal constrained portfolios taking into account national wind resource potential and transmission constraints and compare them with the projected portfolios for 2020. Such constraints limit the theoretical potential efficiency gains from geographical diversification, but there is still considerable room to improve performance from actual or projected portfolios. These results highlight the need for more cross-border interconnection capacity, for greater coordination of European renewable support policies, and for renewable support mechanisms and electricity market designs providing locational incentives. Under these conditions, a mechanism for renewables credits trading could help aligning wind power portfolios with the theoretically efficient geographic dispersion.     

External governance and the EU policy for sustainable biofuels,the case of Mozambique

Growing demand for transport biofuels in the EU is driving an expansion of the industry in developing countries. Large-scale production of energy crops for biofuel, if mismanaged, could cause detrimental environmental and social impacts. The aim of this study is to examine whether the newly adopted EU Directive 2009/28/EC and its sustainability certification system can effectively ensure sustainable production of biofuels outside the EU. Mozambique, a least developed country with biofuels ambitions, is selected as empirical case. The effectiveness of the EU policy in analysed employing ideal models of external governance (hierarchical, market and network governance) as analytical framework. The findings show that the EU attempts to impose its rules and values on sustainable biofuels using its leverage through trade. The market approach adopted by the EU is expected to produce only unstable (subject to abrupt changes of market prices and demand) and thin (limited to climate and biodiversity issues) policy results. Stronger emphasis on a network oriented approach based on substantial involvement of foreign actors, and on international policy legitimacy is suggested as a way forward.     

Minimal variance hedging of natural gas derivatives in exponential Lévy models: Theory and empirical performance

We consider the problem of hedging European options written on natural gas futures, in a market where prices of traded assets exhibit jumps, by trading in the underlying asset. We provide a general expression for the hedging strategy which minimizes the variance of the terminal hedging error, in terms of stochastic integral representations of the payoffs of the options involved. This formula is then applied to compute hedge ratios for common options in various models with jumps, leading to easily computable expressions. As a benchmark we take the standard Black–Scholes and Merton delta hedges. We show that in natural gas option markets minimal variance hedging with underlying consistently outperform the benchmarks by quite a margin.     

Risk-minimisation in electricity markets: Fixed price,unknown consumption

This paper analyses risk management of fixed price, unspecified consumption contracts in energy markets. We model the joint dynamics of the spot-price and the consumption of electricity, study expected loss minimisation for different loss measures, and derive optimal static hedge strategies based on forward contracts. The strategies are implemented empirically and compared to a benchmark strategy widely used by the industry. On 2012–2014 Nordic market data, the suggested hedges significantly outperform the benchmark: The realised cumulative profit-and-losses are greater for almost every single one-month period and the hourly realised payoffs result in an approximate 65% out-performance probability. Hedges based on asymmetric loss measures yield markedly higher reward-to-risk ratios than the benchmark, which can be exploited to release a premium from the contract in the financially significant order of 1.5% of the fixed price.     

European CO2 prices and carbon capture investments

We assess the option to install a carbon capture and storage (CCS) unit in a coal-fired power plant operating in a carbon-constrained environment. We consider two sources of risk, namely the price of emission allowance and the price of the electricity output. First we analyse the performance of the EU market for CO₂ emission allowances. Specifically, we focus on the contracts maturing in the Kyoto Protocol's first commitment period (2008 to 2012) and calibrate the underlying parameters of the allowance price process. Then we refer to the Spanish wholesale electricity market and calibrate the parameters of the electricity price process.We use a two-dimensional binomial lattice to derive the optimal investment rule. In particular, we obtain the trigger allowance prices above which it is optimal to install the capture unit immediately. We further analyse the effect of changes in several variables on these critical prices, among them allowance price volatility and a hypothetical government subsidy.We conclude that, at current permit prices, immediate installation does not seem justified from a financial point of view. This need not be the case, though, if carbon market parameters change dramatically, carbon capture technology undergoes significant improvements, and/or a specific governmental policy to promote these units is adopted.     

Japanese investment in Australian coal assets through the demise of concessional financing

The Australian coal industry has been described as being a perpetual case of ‘profitless prosperity’. This implies that foreign companies invest in low-margin mining activities with motives other than profit. It is argued that foreign investors and Japanese trading companies in particular used government investment concessions and subsidies to help create oversupply in the seaborne coal market. The aim of this strategy is to depress contract prices at the cost of achieving reasonable profitability levels, which have historically been well below that of other investors in the Australian mining sector. This study shows that the quasi-integration via concessional funding arrangements is not a credible strategy employed by Japanese trading companies or the Japanese Government. The analysis rejects the hypothesis that via foreign direct investment, Japanese companies are securing coal at below average prices. Furthermore we find no clear evidence of Japanese trading companies using their information advantage as equity investors to secure coal at favourable prices during contract negotiations. Finally we examine the investment behaviour of new entrants in the Australian coal production sector to highlight the differences in investment strategy between Japanese companies and other foreign investors regarding the security of supply.     

电力市场环境下梯级水电站运行管控仿真研究

针对电力市场环境下梯级水电站运行管控问题,提出基于市场出清价的市场力评估指标,并通过构建双层市场仿真与管控模型对不同管控条件下梯级水电站运行方式进行仿真研究。在下层市场竞价仿真模型中,通过迭代优化算法实现市场仿真运行;在上层市场管控设计模型中,以基数电量为决策变量实现对梯级水电站运行的管控;上下层通过市场力评估指标与基数电量形成耦合关系。最后提出耦合市场仿真运行与多核并行禁忌遗传算法(MPTGA)的求解思路对管控方案进行评价优选。实例分析表明,基于出清电价的市场力评估指标可有效评估市场中梯级水电站跨交易时段所拥有的市场力,利用双层市场仿真与管控模型获得的基数电量方案可实现市场优化管控运行。