Using two sectors of economic infrastructure contrasting them to lecture materials : 1,2,3,4,5 – show your understanding
Lecture materials/readings will be at the end. Please use them all.
Reference list should be at least 10-20 sources. Half need to be from the reading list, the rest can be ofwat/ofgem… Up to you
total of 3 powerpoints, 2 on water, 1 on electricity/energy
the rest are readings – use those most useful to you
I have written what every source has in terms of useful info
Instructions:
Using the two chosen sectors of economic infrastructure, Water and Energy, and contrast them with respect to the following from the lecture materials:
1. Industry structures and main financing mechanisms
2. Historic and future drivers of investment
3. Sector (or sub-sector) regulation (if applicable)
4. Predominant sector risks and their mitigants
5. Available (economic and financial) appraisal methods and related sector (or sub-sector) intricacies
You must heavily use the module content.
Focus on the developed world, a developed region, the UK.
Two companies, OfWat and OfGem, both are regulatory bodies to ensure the security of supply and development of markets for all utilities. In short, they work to protect consumers and make sure the system runs fairly
Ofgem and Ofwat: Everything you need to know: https://monarchpartnership.co.uk/ofgem-ofwat/
https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/engineering/generation-asset
To address these sectors thoroughly, you should also base your comparison on content presented over the course of the module as well as academic and industry references. Your writing should be thoughtfully presented, coherent, concise, and properly referenced using Harvard citation style.
Marking scheme:
Each thematic area of comparison will be equally weighted, with ten percent of the marks reserved for presentation:
1. Industry structures and main financing mechanisms 15%
2. Historic and future drivers of investment 15%
3. Sector (or sub-sector) regulation (if applicable) 20%
4. Predominant sector risks and their mitigants 20%
5. Available (economic and financial) appraisal methods and related sector (or sub-sector) intricacies 20%
6. Presentation 10%
Make sure you are able to show an ability to:
apply module concepts to a wide range of cases and examples, or
make connections to concepts not taught in the module, or
re-work module concepts in an original way, or structure or present the argument in an original way.
demonstrate critical power and/or ability to synthesise or articulate an insightful view of context
Lecture Readings/Material:
S. Proost and G. Pepermans (2016), Energy Economics.
This book is a course on energy
economics written for engineers with some background in economics. It covers material for session 1 (Chapter 6 economics of climate change); session 3 (Chapter 12 and 13 electricity economics and liberalization).
Session 2 and 3:
Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change. A copy of this report is available here:
Stern_Review. This is a bit dated now (written in 2006), but is still a very useful analysis. I would recommend looking at the executive summary, Chapter 2 (economics) and Chapter 14 (market instruments).
International Energy Agency (IEA), World Energy Agency: https://www.iea.org/weo/. The IEA is sometimes criticized for being a bit behind the curve, but this annual landmark publication always provides a very useful framework for discussing what is going on in world energy
markets.
The EU Energy Union. See website: https://ec.europa.eu/commission/priorities/energy-unionand-climate_en.
This will give you a feel for the major dimensions of EU energy policy, including the recent developments such as (i) the Clean Energy for All Package and (ii) the Clean Planet for All, released in November 2018.
The European Green Deal. See website: https://ec.europa.eu/clima/policies/eu-climateaction_en. I will start my presentation with a quick introduction of the European Green Deal, which sets Europe on a course to carbon neutrality by 2050.
Have a look at this document, especially, if you want to know more about the EUs Green Deal.
Session 4:
R. Green (2006), Investment and generation capacity, chapter in Competitive Electricity Markets and Sustainability, 2006, edited by F. Lvque.
This chapter can be difficult to get hold of. However, I find it one of the few accessible explanations of the basics of electricity economics.
D. Newbery (2018), What Future(s) for Liberalized Electricity Markets: Efficient, Equitable or Innovative?, Energy Journal, Vol 39(1), pp 1-27.
– This is a bit advanced, but well worth the investment for those interested in understanding the interactions of public policy, electricity markets and finance. It also has a nice example of optimal prices and tariffs in Peru.
IEA (2014) Power of transformation: Wind, Sun and the Economics of Flexible Power Systems available at IEA website (https://www.iea.org/publications/freepublications/publication/thepower-of-transformation—wind-sun-and-the-economics-of-flexible-power-systems.html).
This provides a good insight into the key drawback of increasing the share of variable renewables on a power system; and hence the need to use price signals to change incentives.
J. Lazar, Teaching the Duck to Fly, 2nd edition, RAP. Webinar and paper available here:
https://www.raponline.org/event/teaching-the-duck-to-fly-second-edition. This example is from California, but holds true generally. Also wonderfully well explained.
Session 5:
Crown Estates Guide to an offshore wind farm Guide-to-an-offshore-wind-farm. This provides a good introduction to the basic elements, terminology and project cycle of an offshore windfarm.
Offshore Wind in Europe 2018 report: https://windeurope.org/aboutwind/statistics/offshore/european-offshore-wind-industry-key-trends-statistics-2018/.
This provides a somewhat dated description on what is happening in the industry; A newer version may be available.
E.R. Yescombe (2002), Principles of Project Finance, Academic Press. This is a classic
introduction to project finance
we love a lot of literature, so the more the merrier, but we dont want it all to be literature – it needs to incorporate whatis learned from the module, what do you know about concepts 1,2,3,4,5?
in text citation please as (last name, date)
reference list at the end in alphabetical order, and date of access, use easybib.com or something
