IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/enepol/v95y2016icp518-528.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Making renewable energy competitive in India: Reducing financing costs via a government-sponsored hedging facility

Author

Listed:
  • Farooquee, Arsalan Ali
  • Shrimali, Gireesh

Abstract

In India, a significant barrier to market-competitiveness of renewable energy is a shortage of attractive debt. Domestic debt has high cost, short tenors, and variable interest rates, adding 30% to the cost of renewable energy compared to renewable energy projects elsewhere. Foreign debt is as expensive as domestic debt because it requires costly market-based currency hedging solutions. We investigate a government-sponsored foreign exchange facility as an alternative to reducing hedging costs. Using the geometric Brownian motion (GBM)22Acronyms: contract for differences (CfD), foreign exchange (FX), FX hedging facility (FXHF), geometric Brownian motion (GBM), levelized cost of electricity (LCOE), power purchase agreement (PPA). as a representative stochastic model of the INR–USD foreign exchange rate, we find that the expected cost of providing a currency hedge via this facility is 3.5 percentage points, 50% lower than market. This leads to an up to 9% reduction in the per unit cost of renewable energy. However, this requires the government to manage the risks related to unexpected currency movements appropriately. One option to manage these risks is via a capital buffer; for the facility to obtain India's sovereign rating, the capital buffer would need to be almost 30% of the underlying loan. Our findings have significant policy implications given that the Indian government can use this facility to make renewable energy more competitive and, therefore, hasten its deployment.

Suggested Citation

  • Farooquee, Arsalan Ali & Shrimali, Gireesh, 2016. "Making renewable energy competitive in India: Reducing financing costs via a government-sponsored hedging facility," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 95(C), pages 518-528.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:enepol:v:95:y:2016:i:c:p:518-528
    DOI: 10.1016/j.enpol.2016.02.005
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0301421516300465
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.enpol.2016.02.005?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.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Cheung, Yin-Wong & Chinn, Menzie D. & Pascual, Antonio Garcia, 2005. "Empirical exchange rate models of the nineties: Are any fit to survive?," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 24(7), pages 1150-1175, November.
    2. Shrimali, Gireesh & Nelson, David & Goel, Shobhit & Konda, Charith & Kumar, Raj, 2013. "Renewable deployment in India: Financing costs and implications for policy," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 62(C), pages 28-43.
    3. Johansen, Soren & Juselius, Katarina, 1990. "Maximum Likelihood Estimation and Inference on Cointegration--With Applications to the Demand for Money," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 52(2), pages 169-210, May.
    4. Heston, Steven L, 1993. "A Closed-Form Solution for Options with Stochastic Volatility with Applications to Bond and Currency Options," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 6(2), pages 327-343.
    5. Alafita, T. & Pearce, J.M., 2014. "Securitization of residential solar photovoltaic assets: Costs, risks and uncertainty," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 67(C), pages 488-498.
    6. Meese, Richard A. & Rogoff, Kenneth, 1983. "Empirical exchange rate models of the seventies : Do they fit out of sample?," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 14(1-2), pages 3-24, February.
    7. Tang, Amy & Chiara, Nicola & Taylor, John E., 2012. "Financing renewable energy infrastructure: Formulation, pricing and impact of a carbon revenue bond," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 45(C), pages 691-703.
    8. Mussa, Michael, 1979. "Empirical regularities in the behavior of exchange rates and theories of the foreign exchange market," Carnegie-Rochester Conference Series on Public Policy, Elsevier, vol. 11(1), pages 9-57, January.
    9. Philip Gray & Timothy Irwin, 2003. "Exchange Rate Risk : Allocating Exchange Rate Risk in Private Infrastructure Projects," World Bank Publications - Reports 11286, The World Bank Group.
    10. Timothy C. Irwin, 2007. "Government Guarantees : Allocating and Valuing Risk in Privately Financed Infrastructure Projects," World Bank Publications - Books, The World Bank Group, number 6638.
    11. Meese, Richard A & Singleton, Kenneth J, 1982. "On Unit Roots and the Empirical Modeling of Exchange Rates," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 37(4), pages 1029-1035, September.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. Đukan, Mak & Kitzing, Lena, 2023. "A bigger bang for the buck: The impact of risk reduction on renewable energy support payments in Europe," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 173(C).
    2. Shrimali, Gireesh & Konda, Charith & Farooquee, Arsalan Ali, 2016. "Designing renewable energy auctions for India: Managing risks to maximize deployment and cost-effectiveness," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 97(C), pages 656-670.
    3. Indora, Sunil & Kandpal, Tara C., 2019. "A framework for analyzing impact of potential financial/fiscal incentives for promoting institutional solar cooking in India," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 143(C), pages 1531-1543.
    4. Suresha Kharvi & T. P. M. Pakkala, 2021. "An optimal inventory policy when purchase price follows geometric Brownian motion process," OPSEARCH, Springer;Operational Research Society of India, vol. 58(4), pages 835-851, December.
    5. Zhang, Yao & Zhang, Yuxin & Gong, Chao & Dinçer, Hasan & Yüksel, Serhat, 2022. "An integrated hesitant 2-tuple Pythagorean fuzzy analysis of QFD-based innovation cost and duration for renewable energy projects," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 248(C).
    6. Gireesh Shrimali, 2021. "Financial Instruments to Address Renewable Energy Project Risks in India," Energies, MDPI, vol. 14(19), pages 1-19, October.
    7. Vallecha, Harshit & Bhattacharjee, Debraj & Osiri, John Kalu & Bhola, Prabha, 2021. "Evaluation of barriers and enablers through integrative multicriteria decision mapping: Developing sustainable community energy in Indian context," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 138(C).
    8. Jeslin Drusila Nesamalar, J. & Venkatesh, P. & Charles Raja, S., 2017. "The drive of renewable energy in Tamilnadu: Status, barriers and future prospect," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 73(C), pages 115-124.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. van de Gucht, Linda M. & Dekimpe, Marnik G. & Kwok, Chuck C. Y., 1996. "Persistence in foreign exchange rates," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 15(2), pages 191-220, April.
    2. Bekiros, Stelios D., 2014. "Exchange rates and fundamentals: Co-movement, long-run relationships and short-run dynamics," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 39(C), pages 117-134.
    3. Michael KUEHL, 2008. "Strong Comovements of Exchange Rates: Theoretical and Empirical Cases when Currencies Become the Same Asset," EcoMod2008 23800071, EcoMod.
    4. Dal Bianco, Marcos & Camacho, Maximo & Perez Quiros, Gabriel, 2012. "Short-run forecasting of the euro-dollar exchange rate with economic fundamentals," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 31(2), pages 377-396.
    5. Meese, Richard & Rogoff, Kenneth, 1986. "Was it real? The exchange rate -- Interest differential relation: 1973-1984," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 10(1-2), pages 297-298, June.
    6. Christopher J. Neely & Lucio Sarno, 2002. "How well do monetary fundamentals forecast exchange rates?," Review, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, vol. 84(Sep), pages 51-74.
    7. Yuan, Chunming, 2011. "The exchange rate and macroeconomic determinants: Time-varying transitional dynamics," The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 22(2), pages 197-220, August.
    8. Hai Long Vo & Duc Hong Vo, 2023. "The purchasing power parity and exchange‐rate economics half a century on," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 37(2), pages 446-479, April.
    9. Barry A. Goss & S. Gulay Avsar, 2016. "Can Economists Forecast Exchange Rates? The Debate Re-Visited: The Case of the USD/GBP Market," Australian Economic Papers, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 55(1), pages 14-28, March.
    10. Winston T. Lin, 2005. "Currency forecasting based on an error components-seemingly unrelated nonlinear regression model," Journal of Forecasting, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 24(8), pages 593-605.
    11. Park, Cheolbeom & Park, Sookyung, 2013. "Exchange rate predictability and a monetary model with time-varying cointegration coefficients," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 37(C), pages 394-410.
    12. Patrick Artus & Éric Bleuze & François Lecointe, 1990. "Peut-on expliquer les mouvements du dollar ?," Revue Économique, Programme National Persée, vol. 41(6), pages 1027-1050.
    13. Din 祲 Afat & Marta G -Puig & Sim osvilla-Rivero, 2015. "The failure of the monetary model of exchange rate determination," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 47(43), pages 4607-4629, September.
    14. Martin D. Evans & Karen K. Lewis, 1992. "Trends in Expected Returns in Currency and Bond Markets," NBER Working Papers 4116, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    15. Cheng, Fuzhi & Orden, David, 2005. "Exchange rate misalignment and its effects on agricultural producer support estimates," MTID discussion papers 81, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).
    16. Daniel L. Thornton, 2019. "Resolving the unbiasedness and forward premium puzzles," Scottish Journal of Political Economy, Scottish Economic Society, vol. 66(1), pages 5-27, February.
    17. Dominguez, Kathryn M., 1986. "Are foreign exchange forecasts rational? : New evidence from survey data," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 21(3), pages 277-281.
    18. Jaehun Chung & Yongmiao Hong, 2007. "Model-free evaluation of directional predictability in foreign exchange markets," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 22(5), pages 855-889.
    19. Theophilos Papadimitriou & Periklis Gogas & Vasilios Plakandaras, 2016. "Testing Exchange Rate Models in a Small Open Economy: an SVR Approach," Bulletin of Applied Economics, Risk Market Journals, vol. 3(2), pages 9-29.
    20. Kondo, Koji, 1997. "Statistical analysis of foreign exchange rates: application of cointegration model and regime-switching stochastic volatility model," ISU General Staff Papers 1997010108000012997, Iowa State University, Department of Economics.

    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:enepol:v:95:y:2016:i:c:p:518-528. 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.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with 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/enpol .

    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.