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Long-term contract is an important developing direction of China's coal industry coordination. This paper aims to discuss how to use contract for difference (CFD) to avoid risk and effectively increase the benefit of both coal and thermal power plants in the coal-electricity supply chain.

Based on prospect theory, this paper takes the risks and benefits of the coal and coal-fired power plants in the coal supply chain under CFD into balanced consideration to construct the contract coordination mechanism. In this mechanism, the coal demand in the coal supply chain equilibrium under centralized decision-making is regarded as the total annual volume of transactions needed to design the contract coordination mechanism and solve double marginalization. Then, based on prospect theory, in the construction of CFD, this paper takes the income of power and coal enterprises when they are in equilibrium under Stackelberg non-cooperative game as the reference point. In addition, considering that coal demand is a random variable, the CFD with a one-year trading session can be designed.

The research derives the coal price of the contract for difference, contract trading volume and its proportion of the total trading volume. A numerical example shows that the model above can be used to effectively avoid the risk of both coal and electricity sides.

To solve the conflict between coal enterprises and thermal power plants, let the coal-electricity supply chain be converted from non-cooperative game to cooperative game. Based on the prospect theory, this paper takes the income of the non-cooperative game of coal and thermal power plants as a reference point and considers how to design the coordination mechanism, the contract for difference, so as to make the two parties cooperate to solve the double marginal utility of the non-cooperative game in a chain supply. The main innovation of the work lies in the following: first, the coal demand when the coal-electrical supply chain is in balance under centralized decision-making is taken as the total annual trading volume needed to design the contract coordination mechanism and solve double marginalization. Second, based on prospect theory, in the construction of CFD, the benefits of coal-fired power plants and coal enterprises when both sides are in equilibrium under the Stackelberg non-cooperative game are taken as the reference points, and coal demand is taken as a random variable to design the CFD with a one-year transaction period. The price of coal that is not traded through CFD is calculated according to the daily market price. Third, this paper proposes the prospect M-V criterion of the risk-benefit equilibrium of both power and coal enterprises, which means that the risk-benefit equilibrium of both sides is the prospect variance effect of both sides relative to the reference point benefit divided by the prospect expectation effect.

The paper seeks to evaluate the changes in efficiency and productivity of coal‐fired electricity generation of 30 Chinese administrative regions from 1999 to 2007.

The paper incorporates data envelopment analysis with the Malmquist index to study the progress made in this sector. The model considers both economic and environmental factors by including the variables fuel consumption, labor, capital, sulfur dioxide emissions and electricity generated. A second model is constructed without the variable sulfur dioxide emissions to evaluate economic performances without taking environmental measures into consideration.

By comparing the two models, the paper identified provinces that favored economic performance over environmental performance, or vice versa. Also, it showed that the more efficient provinces tend to manage both economic and environmental efficiencies equally well, while the reverse is true for the least efficient provinces. The average total factor productivity growth in coal‐fired electricity generation of all provinces was 3.96 per cent for 1999‐2007, and this growth is mainly attributed to technological change. In addition, it found that the Eastern provinces are the most efficient and productive of the group.

In the absence of provincial coal quality data, a key efficiency factor is missing from the analysis.

Efficiency improvement efforts in the Chinese generation sector should target the least efficient provinces identified in this paper. Practices in the most efficient provinces should be further investigated to be replicated when possible.

The paper provides a contemporary overview of Chinese provincial efficiency and productivity measures for policy makers and investors to improve China's coal‐fired electricity generation sector.

Lignite coal-fired power plants are the main electricity generators in the province of Saskatchewan, Canada. Although burning lignite coal to generate power is economical, it produces significant greenhouse gases making it a big challenge to Canada’s international commitment on emission reduction. However, abundant agricultural crops and sawdust produced in Saskatchewan put the province in a good position to produce and use agri-pellets as an alternative fuel to generate electricity. This study aims to conduct an economic and environmental analysis of the replacement of lignite coal by agri-pellets as the fuel for Saskatchewan’s coal-fired power plants.

The study estimates the economic and environmental costs and benefits of two alternative fuels for power plants. The economic analysis is based on the pellet production and transportation costs from farms to production sites and from the production sites to power plants. In the production process, biomass precursors are densified with and without additives to produce fuel agri-pellets with appropriate mechanical durability and high heating value per volume unit. The environmental analysis involves estimation of greenhouse gas emissions and their social costs for lignite coal and different types of agri-pellets under different scenarios for pellet production and transportation.

The results show that although the total cost of electricity is lower for coal than agri-pellets, the gap shrinks when social costs and specifically a carbon price of $50/tonne are included in the model. The cost of electricity in lignite coal-fired power plants would also be on par with agri-pellets-fired power plants if the carbon price is between U$68 and $78 per tonne depending on the power plant locations. Therefore, a transition from coal to agri-pellet fuels is feasible if a high-enough price is assigned to carbon. The method and the results can be generalized to other places with similar conditions.

There are a few caveats in this study as follows. First, the fixed costs associated with the transformation of the existing coal-fired power plants to pellet-fired plants are not considered. Second, the technological progress in the transportation sector, which would favor the net benefits of using pellets versus coal, is not included in the analysis. Finally, the study does not address the possible political challenges facing the transition in the context of the Canadian federal system.

The study results indicate that the current carbon price of $50 per tonne is not sufficient to make the agri-pellets a feasible source of alternative energy in Saskatchewan. However, if carbon pricing continues to rise by $15 annually starting in 2022, as announced, a transition from coal to agri-pellets will be economically feasible.

Canada is committed to reduce its emission according to the Paris agreement, and therefore, needs to have a concrete policy to find alternative energy sources for its coal-fired power plants. This study examines the challenges and benefits of such transition using the existing agri-pellet resources in Saskatchewan, a province with abundant agricultural residues and coal-fired power plants. The findings indicate that a significant emission reduction can be achieved by using agri-pellets instead of coal to produce electricity. The study also implies that the transition to renewable energy is economical when social costs of carbon (carbon tax) is included in the analysis.

As far as the authors know, this is the first study providing a socio-economic analysis for a possible transition from the coal-fired power plants to a more clean and sustainable renewable energy source in one of the highest carbon dioxide (CO₂) producer provinces in Canada: Saskatchewan. The study builds upon the technical production of three agri-pellets (oat hull, canola hull and sawdust) and estimates the economic and environmental costs of alternative fuels under different scenarios.

The purpose of this study is to benchmark the performance of state-owned coal-fired power plants (CFPPs) and test whether plant-specific knowledge in terms of quality of coal, size, age and make of plant contribute to an improvement in plant efficiency.

The methodology that is utilized in the study follows a nonparametric approach of data envelopment analysis (DEA) with sensitivity analysis and Tobit regression model. The input-oriented DEA models are applied to evaluate the overall, pure technical and scale efficiencies of the CFPPs. Further, slack analysis is conducted to identify modes to improve the efficiency of the inefficient plants. Sensitivity analysis based on peer count and the removal of variables is carried out to identify the benchmark power plant. Through Tobit and bootstrap-truncated regression model, the paper investigates whether a plant's specific knowledge influences its efficiency.

The DEA analysis demonstrates that nine plants are technically purely efficient.The slack analysis reveals that reducing the consumption of oil is the most effective way to improve the efficiency of inefficient plants. Mattur plant is the benchmark for most of the inefficient plants. Regression result suggests that quality of coal and size of plant significantly affect the inefficiency of the sample plants. Bharat Heavy Electrical Limited MAKE plant achieved higher efficiency in comparison to mixed MAKE.

This study is one of the few published studies that benchmark the performance of state-owned CFPPs. This research carried out taking some new uncontrollable parameters of power plant utilities of India. Research work also identifies the possible causes of inefficiency and provides measures to improve the efficiency of the inefficient power plant.

This study aims to propose an approach to assess the security of supply (SS) in a coal-fired electricity generation supply chain subject to public price regulation in Brazil. This study characterizes the Brazilian scenario of coal-fired electricity generation, which represents less than 3.5% of the energy sources.

Data from six mining companies that supply a coal plant were analyzed in a case study. The risks were characterized and objectively estimated through a synthetic multidimensional index. Structural changes in the earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, amortization and exploration indicator time series of coal companies (CC) were statistically detected.

Empirical evidence demonstrates that the supply chain has a low disruption risk (SS index equal to 0.74). However, when suppliers are individually analyzed, 48.64% of all coal shows moderated disruption risk, and 2.51% is under high risk. In addition, this study finds a drop in the financial results of CC related to public regulation of coal prices. This impacts the security of coal supply.

This study discusses the influence of legal and regulatory policy risks in a coal power generation supply chain and the implications of the SS index as a management tool.

A novel SS index is presented and empirically operationalized, and its dimensions – environmental, occupational, operational, economic-financial and supply capacity – are analyzed.

The recent interconnection and trade of electricity between NSW and Victoria is likely to exacerbate any misallocation of resources due to inefficient pricing. The aim of this article is to investigate the likely divergence between electricity generation costs using current market prices of coal and natural gas, and those when coal and natural gas are priced efficiently. To do so, the paper applies the concept of full social cost pricing to five different generation technologies in the two states. It concludes that the current movement to privatisation and interconnection in the electricity sector, while it may promote pricing closer to marginal private costs, will not result in efficient outcomes in the presence of external costs and the different tax regimes which currently apply to each generation fuel and in each state.

Electricity plays an essential role in nations' economic development. However, coal and renewables currently play an important part in electricity production in major world economies. The current study aims to forecast the electricity production from coal and renewables in the USA, China and Japan.

Two intelligent grey forecasting models – optimized discrete grey forecasting model DGM (1,1,α), and optimized even grey forecasting model EGM (1,1,α,θ) – are used to forecast electricity production. Also, the accuracy of the forecasts is measured through the mean absolute percentage error (MAPE).

Coal-powered electricity production is decreasing, while renewable energy production is increasing in the major economies (MEs). China's coal-fired electricity production continues to grow. The forecasts generated by the two grey models are more accurate than that by the classical models EGM (1,1) and DGM (1,1) and the exponential triple smoothing (ETS).

The study confirms the reliability and validity of grey forecasting models to predict electricity production in the MEs.

The most problematic area of any carbon policy debate is the treatment of incumbent CO2 intensive coal‐fired electricity generators. Policy applied to the electricity sector is rarely well guided by macroeconomic theory and modeling alone, especially in the case of carbon where the impacts are concentrated, involve a small number of firms and an essential service. The purpose of this paper is to examine the consequences of poor climate change policy development on the efficiency of capital markets within the Australian electricity sector.

The authors conducted a survey of Australian project finance professionals to determine the risk profiles to be applied to the electricity sector, in the event a poorly‐designed climate change policy is adopted.

The Australian case study finds that if zero compensation results in the financial distress of project financed coal generators, finance costs for all plant rises, including new gas and renewables, leading to unnecessary increases in electricity prices. Accordingly, an unambiguous case for providing structural adjustment assistance to coal generators exists on the grounds of economic efficiency.

Accordingly, the paper shows that an unambiguous case for providing structural adjustment assistance to coal generators exists, on the grounds of economic efficiency.

This paper aims to study the changes in productivity for 25 state‐owned coal‐fired power plants (CFPPs) over a period of seven years (2003‐2010).

The methodology that is utilized in the study follows a non‐parametric approach of data envelopment analysis (DEA) and uses the Malmquist index to estimate the change in productivity of panel samples. In the calculations, the study considers installed capacity, fuel, labour, electricity used, and average operational time as inputs and considers net electricity produced as output.

The results indicate that the average total factor productivity regressed during the investigation period at an annual rate of 2 percent. The decrease in productivity is equally attributed to the technical efficiency change and technological change components, with an average decline in productivity of 1 percent per year. A plant‐wise analysis demonstrates that the Parichha plant recorded an average increase in productivity of 3.9 percent per year that was mainly driven by the technical efficiency change component (4.2 percent).There is little variation in the productivity of small‐size plants when compared with medium and large‐size plants. The productivity of multivaried plants is comparatively lower than BHEL (Bharat Heavy Electricals Limited) make plants.

The impact of size, make and region on change in productivity is examined. This study recommends specific policies that can be implemented to increase the productivity of power plants. The study also provides a contemporary overview of Indian CFPPs that can aid energy planners and plant operators in the monitoring and detection of changes in productivity.

Carbon dioxide emissions are considered to be one of the main culprits in global warming and the Kyoto Protocol specifically targets reductions in carbon dioxide to reduce global warming. Because the fossil burning electric utility plants are the primary industrial source of carbon dioxide emissions, we examine how effective the U.S. electric utility companies have been in reducing carbon dioxide emissions. We evaluate 1998 carbon dioxide emissions in relation to the emissions of the base year of 1990 set by the Kyoto Protocol. We also examine whether adequate disclosures are being made by the utilities to reflect their pollution performance. The findings show that the total amount of carbon dioxide emissions increased by 35% in 1998 compared to 1990, but on a relative basis, they decreased from 205 to 204lbs/MMBTU. Though we detect some support for a positive association between pollution disclosures and pollution emissions, the electric utilities in general do not disclose much about global warming or carbon dioxide.