IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/ejores/v291y2021i3p1091-1105.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Renewable auctions: Bidding for real options

Author

Listed:
  • Matthäus, David
  • Schwenen, Sebastian
  • Wozabal, David

Abstract

Procurement auctions for renewable energy support have become a standard policy instrument to stimulate investment in clean energy. Winning bidders have the right but not the obligation to realize their projects during a grace period following the auction. Currently, the nexus of award prices and the realization rate is not well understood in the literature. We combine auction theory and real options theory to model bidders who view the right to build subsidized renewable capacity as real option. Using asymptotic theory for multi-unit auctions, we derive optimal bidding strategies and analyze how auction design and bidder characteristics impact equilibrium bids, award prices, and realization rates. In particular, we show that bidders who value the flexibility of non-realization higher bid more aggressively and exhibit lower realization rates. We analyze determinants of these effects and illustrate how auction design can trade-off procurement cost and realization rates by adjusting pre-qualification payments and the grace period for construction. Finally, we test our results on real-world auctions in UK and Germany and show that our model explains auction outcomes and observed realization rates.

Suggested Citation

  • Matthäus, David & Schwenen, Sebastian & Wozabal, David, 2021. "Renewable auctions: Bidding for real options," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 291(3), pages 1091-1105.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:ejores:v:291:y:2021:i:3:p:1091-1105
    DOI: 10.1016/j.ejor.2020.09.047
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0377221720308511
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.ejor.2020.09.047?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.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Côté, Elizabeth & Đukan, Mak & Pons-Seres de Brauwer, Cristian & Wüstenhagen, Rolf, 2022. "The price of actor diversity: Measuring project developers’ willingness to accept risks in renewable energy auctions," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 163(C).
    2. del Río, Pablo & Kiefer, Christoph P., 2023. "Academic research on renewable electricity auctions: Taking stock and looking forward," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 173(C).
    3. Buschle, Julius & Anatolitis, Vasilios & Plötz, Patrick, 2024. "Empirical evidence on discrimination in multi-technology renewable energy auctions in Europe," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 184(C).
    4. Münch, Florian Anselm & Scheifele, Fabian, 2023. "Nurturing national champions? Local content in solar auctions and firm innovation," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 179(C).
    5. Jung, Jihyeok & Song, Chan-Oi & Lee, Deok-Joo & Yoon, Kiho, 2024. "Optimal energy procurement with long-term photovoltaic energy contracts considering generation uncertainty: A two-dimensional auction approach," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 356(C).
    6. Yu, Xianyu & Ge, Shengxian & Zhou, Dequn & Wang, Qunwei & Chang, Ching-Ter & Sang, Xiuzhi, 2022. "Whether feed-in tariff can be effectively replaced or not? An integrated analysis of renewable portfolio standards and green certificate trading," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 245(C).
    7. Münch, Florian Anselm & Marian, Adela, 2022. "The design of technical requirements in public solar auctions: Evidence from India," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 154(C).
    8. Sheykhha, Siamak & Borggrefe, Frieder & Madlener, Reinhard, 2022. "Policy implications of spatially differentiated renewable energy promotion: A multi-level scenario analysis of onshore wind auctioning in Germany," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 169(C).
    9. Ali Darudi & Hannes Weigt, 2024. "Review and Assessment of Decarbonized Future Electricity Markets," Energies, MDPI, vol. 17(18), pages 1-38, September.
    10. Didier Nibbering & Coos van Buuren & Wei Wei, 2021. "Real Options Valuation of Wind Energy Based on the Empirical Production Uncertainty," Monash Econometrics and Business Statistics Working Papers 19/21, Monash University, Department of Econometrics and Business Statistics.

    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:ejores:v:291:y:2021:i:3:p:1091-1105. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/eor .

    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.