The impact of corporatisation and management reform on the role and working life of managers in an Australian electricity utility: A triangulated study, 1994-2002

For decades electricity has been a critical source of energy for all major industries, nationally and internationally. In 2002 the Australian electricity supply industry had assets in excess of $86 billion and accounted for more than 1.4 percent of gross domestic product. It is a major employer with more than 33,000 people serving more than 8 million customers. This study explores the impact of corporatisation and management reform on the role and working life of managers within the broader context of this industry. It is an industry identified by academics, commentators and the business media over the past two decades as one of poor management performance and inefficiencies - often seen as significant contributors to historically high electricity costs to consumers in Australia. As a result, electricity utility reform has been high on the agenda of national and state governments from the early 1980\u27s and throughout the 1990\u27s. Macro and micro economic reforms driven by significant government sponsored reports were considered central to Australia\u27s efforts to improve its economic position. Underpinning this orthodoxy was the call for managerial responsibilities and incentives for managers of public utilities to be redefined in accord with the government\u27s objectives. Managerialism became the ideological driver for management reform and corporatisation. This in tum became the major change process employed by state governments seeking micro (agency level) economic reforms. These economic reforms incorporated efficiency, productivity and contestability considerations in line with National Competition Policy

The Strategies of Local Utilities After the Liberalization of the European Energy Sector: Which Is the Emerging Business Model? The Case Study of Italy

The European energy sector has gone through a period of significant change since the 1980s. External factors such as regulation, market competition, and technological innovation, as well as internal factors such as ownership, corporate governance, and culture, have affected the strategic positioning of local utilities providers. In this context, the paper aims at applying a new construct to the public utility sector – the business model meant as a new unit of strategic analysis – in order to better understand the strategic behaviour and competitive positioning of local utilities after the liberalization of the European energy market. As result of a multiple case study analysis, three main business models of local utilities have been outlined: traditional local utility, multiutility company, and global specialist company.Public Service; Energy Sector; Local Utility; Strategic Management; Business Model

HYBRIDITY IN PUBLIC MANAGEMENT: The Consequences of its Adoption in Public Sector Management in Ghana

Ghana’s Public Sector, which comprises the various Ministries, Municipalities, Departments and Agencies (MMDA’s), has come under intense criticism over the past decade over its bureaucratic and inefficient tendencies, comparable to the private sector. With the advantage of hindsight, contemporary political leaders are restructuring, retrenching, empowering and repositioning Public Sector Organizations to make them cost effective and business-like, and also meet its Millennium Development Goals. This development has led to a steady increase in hybrid features of some public institutions and hence, the preference for hybrid organizations to execute some key public policies and projects. The synergy of public, private as well as the voluntary sector values and ethos is essential for organizational growth and development. It is evident from current public policy choices and analysis that the country will soon witness substantial proliferation of hybrid organizations. However, the palpable prospects and challenges that are likely to emanate from this paradigm shift still remain oblivious. The quest for maximizing profit without losing sight of its fiducially public duties has bequeathed further obligations on public sector managers and inadvertently affected management style. The essay examined and expatiated the possible consequences the adoption of hybrid organizations will have on public management practices since the practicality of managing hybrids is quite problematic. The research also accounted for the various factors and developments that have led to this sudden preference for hybridity. Qualitative research method was adopted and the canonical use of face-to-face interviews was resorted to in soliciting data. In fine, it concludes that hybridity presents the country with enormous opportunities and its significance would be greatly realized when measures are taken by stakeholders to ameliorate old systemic practices. The Electricity Company of Ghana, Driver Vehicle Licensing Authority, Tema Oil Refinery, as well as Ghana Water Company constituted the primary cases in point of analysis and the final data was subjected to qualitative analysis in bridging the gap between theory and practice.fi=Opinnäytetyö kokotekstinä PDF-muodossa.|en=Thesis fulltext in PDF format.|sv=Lärdomsprov tillgängligt som fulltext i PDF-format

The origins and development of South African energy policy

Includes bibliographical references (p. 421-429)

Essays on Energy Economics and Environmental Policies

This dissertation contains three distinct empirical chapters in applied energy and environmental economics. Each chapter focuses on a unique set of research questions, methods, and data. The unifying motivation therein concerns the development of renewable or alternative low-carbon energy sources as a policy response to the challenges of climate change mitigation, local and regional environmental quality issues, and energy security concerns. Economic and environmental evaluation of the energy policies coupled with understanding energy use patterns is of paramount importance. Together, the empirical chapters focus on demand, supply, and policy aspects of energy markets in the United States (US). First, Chapter 2 evaluates the impacts of the Renewable Portfolio Standard (RPS) on renewable electricity capacity. RPS is a state-level policy that requires electricity suppliers to include a certain proportion (or quantity) of renewable electricity in their total electricity sales over a specified time period. The chapter employs a fixed-effects panel regression model and a spatial econometric methodology using panel data spanning 47 states between 1990 and 2014. Thus, and importantly, the analyses incorporate salient spatial and temporal heterogeneities of RPS (i.e., varying RPS features across states and years). The results illustrate that the RPS has driven a 194 MW increase in overall renewable capacity (representing more than one third of the average electricity capacity developed between 1990 and 2014 in 47 states). The results also suggest that the impacts of RPS, while exhibiting spatial dependencies, vary depending on the renewable energy source. RPS positively impacts renewable electricity capacity, the share of renewable electricity capacity in total electricity capacity, as well as the shares of solar and wind capacity in total electricity capacity (the impacts become 1.3 times larger for solar and about two thirds fold larger for wind with reference to their average counterparts). However, the impacts of RPS are not statistically significant for biomass or geothermal resources. With the consistent patterns of the impacts of RPS across modeling scenarios, RPS adoption or lack thereof in different states, policy age, provision of renewable energy certificates (REC), and annually mandated obligations for renewable electricity in the overall electricity mix are among the critical factors which determine the efficacy of RPS. The positive impacts of RPS on solar and wind capacity are consistent with the relatively emphasized focus of RPS legislation across states which serves to prioritize these two renewable energy sources. Notwithstanding limitations in the available data (and the possibility that improvements in this respect over time would enable a more nuanced and higher-resolution investigation), the current findings provide guidance on how RPS is performing. The significantly positive impact of flexible REC provisions (allowing REC to be generated in any state), coupled with spatial spillover effects indicate the interstate marketing possibilities of renewable energy (and energy credits). The results (with respect to the significant contribution of different RPS attributes) suggest that the critical role the state level policies can make to meet national level goals about climate change and energy mix. More specifically, the results imply that scaling up RPS proliferation across the states (guided by policy treatment effects, coupled with spatial dependencies of both the RPS and renewable electricity) and specifying RPS mandates by renewable energy sources (guided by significantly positive impacts for solar and wind), at least up to the point where renewable energy sector obtains efficiency gains (economies of scales and allocative efficiency) or to the situation where better alternative to the RPS becomes available (e.g., market based carbon pricing policy, which can be least-cost carbon mitigation mechanism), can play an important role in generating transformative advances in renewable electricity sector. Next, Chapter 3 reports on an economic and environmental assessment to determine the optimal manure management strategy for large dairies. More specifically, a cost-benefit analysis and a life cycle assessment are carried out based on publicly available secondary data, motivated by the fact that improper management of dairy manure can result in adverse environmental and public health impacts. The results illustrate the comparatively high economic and environmental benefits associated with an integrated framework of bioenergy production as an alternative approach to manure management. Analyses are conducted under several scenarios (exploring the potential market for nutrients and greenhouse gases), all of which confirm that co-producing bioenergy in this context is more profitable than traditional on-site management approaches. The results imply that the livestock sector can maximize economic and environmental gains by integrating nutrient recovery and bioenergy production in alternative manure management considerations (rather than simply considering dairy manure as a waste disposal problem). The final empirical investigation, Chapter 4, explores the temporal and spatial variation of sectoral natural gas demand in the US. A fixed-effects panel regression model is configured to analyze monthly data between 2001 and 2015. The results demonstrate the inelastic price responses at state, regional, and national levels across natural gas consumption sectors in the US, reflecting the importance of natural gas in contemporary energy systems. The implication is that price based policies, such as energy efficiency standards or energy saving targets in building codes, in the natural gas sector may not be effective (but, since the magnitudes of price elasticity vary across economic sectors, states and regions, efficacy of such price based policies will vary across these different dimensions). On the other hand, the inelastic price responses may reveal resiliency (i.e., stable market) of natural gas market to the changes in natural gas prices that may be driven by policy changes in other segment of the energy market (e.g., renewable energy supporting policies may increase natural gas prices). The resulting implication can be that natural gas that holds critical significance in the contemporary energy system from both environmental and economic perspectives can also serve as a transition fuel. The statistically significant weather impacts in terms of heating degree days (HDD) and cooling degree days (CDD) revealed in this analysis are consistent with the extant energy demand literature, where higher HDD stimulates greater consumption of natural gas in the residential sector while CDD appears to increase natural gas consumption for electricity production. The impacts with regard to weather attributes (HDD and CDD) also help to design informed policies to achieve various energy management goals (e.g., attaining energy efficiency or promoting alternative clean energy by quantifying the repercussions of changes in consumers’ responses to natural gas demand across climatic seasons in the energy market stability). Collectively, these empirical chapters offer novel and important implications concerning energy market structures (supply and demand aspects), the environmental and economic assessment for renewable energy production potentials, and the policy responses, which have been or should be designed, to ensure the multi-dimensional sustainability of complex energy systems

The evolution of donor-recipient relations in electricity reform: rethinking the principal-agent framework

Since the early 1990s electricity reforms across Sub-Saharan Africa have been marked by controversy. Despite the World Bank’s major role in driving electricity reform as part of its conditional lending strategy in the electricity sector, its relationship with recipient countries has received little attention within the electricity reform literature. This is surprising given the increasing pressure on the World Bank to improve the effectiveness of its conditional lending more generally. This thesis contributes to filling this gap by exploring how World Bank-recipient country relations shape and constrain the direction of reform. The donor-recipient relationship is commonly espoused in the academic literature as a principal-agent relationship, whereby international aid organisations (principals) delegate authority for implementing their development policies to recipient countries (agents). I develop this framework by incorporating refined concepts of power, partnership, ownership and knowledge, prominent features in development studies literature and recent donor discourse. The analytical framework developed is applied to the process of electricity reform in two countries: Tanzania and Ghana. While the impetus for reform in these two countries was similar, the way in which the reform process unfolded was different. The analysis is based on in-depth, semi-structured interviews and documentary evidence. It uses a process-tracing method, combining within-case and cross-case analysis. A number of insights emerge from the analysis. I find that availability of reform expertise plays a significant role in determining the strength of power relations between donors and recipient countries. It also appears that reform ownership lies within different ‘domains’. Uneven ownership across domains accounts for the inconsistent reform implementation noted in both cases. And knowledge asymmetry provides a useful concept to analyse the impact of decentralised donor staff. In conclusion, this thesis argues that a modified principal-agent framework offers additional insight into the workings of the donor-recipient relationship

Modelling and Simulation of Electrical Energy Systems through a Complex Systems Approach using Agent-Based Models

Complexity science aims to better understand the processes of both natural and man-made systems which are composed of many interacting entities at different scales. A disaggregated approach is proposed for simulating electricity systems, by using agent-based models coupled to continuous ones. The approach can help in acquiring a better understanding of the operation of the system itself, e.g. on emergent phenomena or scale effects; as well as in the improvement and design of future smart grids

The future of liquified natural gas (LNG) in the energy transition: options and implications for the LNG industry in a decarbonising world

A global energy transition is currently taking place, driven primarily by the need to combat climate change. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has concluded that the current trajectory of global greenhouse gas emissions is not consistent with limiting global warming to below 1.5 or 2 °C, relative to pre-industrial levels, a threshold that could lead to severe economic damage and instability for the coming decades. Fossil fuel combustion, industry, transport, and electricity production contribute to approximately 80% of global greenhouse gas emissions. Energy systems must therefore decarbonise at dramatic rates to move towards a more sustainable environmental development path, but also to cater for population and economic growth in many parts of the world. Natural gas, a fuel with superior environmental credentials than other fossil fuels, has been touted as a “transition fuel” to support the low-carbon transition by promoting fuel-switching and supporting hard-to-abate sectors until largescale electrification with renewable resources and other solutions such as largescale batteries and hydrogen are developed and deployed. Utilising a bespoke meta-framework grounded in institutional theory, combining elements of techno-economic and socio-technical approaches, this study examines how institutional, political, and resource characteristics affect the use of liquified natural gas (LNG), the fastest growing sector within natural gas. Methodology includes the analysis of three country cases (UK, Japan, China). In addition, an in-depth analysis of the LNG industry is conducted, with a focus on the decarbonisation options and implications for the industry, including the impact of development of the hydrogen economy on LNG. The synthesis presents conclusions and findings on LNG’s role in future potential pathways in energy systems in various stages of the energy transition

Impact of competition policy reforms on rural and regional Australia

On 28 August 1998 the Treasurer referred the impact of competition policy reforms on rural an regional Australia for inquiry and report within 12 months of receiving the reference. The Commission is to assess the impact (both transitional and ongoing) of the competition policy and related reforms introduced by the Commonwealth, State, Territory and local governments under the three intergovernmental agreements signed in April 1995 — the Competition Principles Agreement, the Conduct Code Agreement and the Agreement to Implement the National Competition Policy and Related Reforms.competition policy - rural and regional Australia - bush - National Competition Policy - country - demographics - labour market - social indicators - Competition Principles Agreement - electricity - water - gas - road transport - statutory marketing arrrangements - competitive neutrality - competitive tendering and contracting - local government - assistance - tourism - mining - sugar - rice - dairy - telecommunications - agriculture