Renewable energy sources (RES) are a solution to the energy crisis in Europe. Their recognition and measurement from a financial perspective can pose significant challenges for managers and ...accounting professionals. Large European utility companies must present their financial statements in accordance with the International Financial Reporting Standards. We investigated the degree to which RES-linked financial disclosures in the corporate reports of European energy producers were relevant and comparable for the financial year 2020. Our sample consisted of 16 of the largest European utility companies. Based on a qualitative analysis, we compiled a set of 16 key financial elements to be disclosed concerning RES deployment. We found that the comparability of the financial information related to RES is relatively low. The inconsistent specification of reportable segments and the unclear formulations regarding RES investments diminish the comparability of financial statements. We provided several recommendations on improving the financial reporting linked to RES business activities. This is a new area of research that could have an impact on the industry’s degree of transparency and facilitate a sustainable energy transition.
This study deals with the governance and performance of utility companies following mergers in local government organizations (LGOs). It is demonstrated by using the municipal water supply and ...sewerage company in city of Serres as a case study of how the reform initiative known as “Kallikratis” has impacted Greek municipal water and sewerage companies. As a result of the Kallikratis Program, the municipalities were merged, and new data were added to the map of local government in Greece. The methodological approach entails surveying the economic analysis of raw data using a number of financial ratios (financial statements of the municipal company). The study’s findings demonstrate that the municipal company of Serres was able to plan the actions that resulted in an improvement of the majority of the examined ratios after merger events, despite the extra responsibilities and geographic areas that the Kallikratis Program added to the municipal companies and the reduction of the extraordinary subsidies as a result of the Greek debt crisis. Eleven of the fourteen ratios perform better than they did before the merger, while three of them actually perform worse (2011–2018). However, various and contradictory results about the evolution of these ratios are seen over the crisis era, as some of them initially show a partial improvement (in the midst of the economic crisis period), but then they gradually deteriorate by the end of the crisis.
•The RTP strategy for multiseller smart grid is formulated as a bilevel programming.•Random power consumption is studied and local optimality is aligned with global one.•The bilevel programing is ...transformed into a deterministic optimization problem.•A distributed genetic RTP algorithm is designed to obtain the solution effectively.
As reform and deregulation in the power industry proceed, more than one utility company has emerged in the power grid. In addition, due to the random fluctuation of electricity consumption, the power grid becomes more complex. New appropriate management strategies are required to handle the future smart grid. The real-time pricing (RTP) mechanism is an incentive way to increase energy usage efficiency. In this paper, considering the effect of the random fluctuation of electricity consumption, we propose a distributed genetic RTP scheme for smart grid with multiple utility companies and users based on expectation bilevel programming. We discuss the properties of the model and transform it into a deterministic optimization problem. Using a distributed genetic algorithm (GA), we find the optimal strategy for electricity supply and consumption and obtain the RTP. With this approach, subproblems can be solved individually. In addition, at each iteration, the information exchanged in the integrated system only consists of prices, the optimal electricity consumption, etc., which can be provided by each utility company and user respectively. Therefore, the distributed GA not only helps to protect the privacy of utility companies and users but also lowers the complexity of the computation. Simulation results validate the proposed distributed genetic RTP can significantly reduce peak time loading and efficiently balance system energy distribution while maximizing benefits for both utility companies and users.
The purpose of the research reported here was to develop practical tools to assess organizational readiness prior to the implementation of a continuous improvement (CI) initiative in a public sector ...environment. A case study approach was used, which focused on a UK public utility company. The data was collected through a survey and the results were used to provide practical measures of readiness and inform the development of the initiative. The research synthesizes and builds on the existing literature in the areas of success, failure and readiness factors to develop a framework for the assessment of readiness for organizations undertaking CI initiatives.
The quality of electric power has become an important issue for electric utility companies and their customers. With the extensive application of micro-grid technologies, power quality (PQ) ...disturbances are more likely to affect users; thus, research on the recognition of PQ disturbances has attracted increased attention. This study presents a novel PQ disturbance-recognition algorithm, based on time-frequency (TF) analysis and a decision tree (DT) classifier. The proposed method requires fewer feature statistics compared to the S-transform-based approach for PQ disturbance identification. In this study, feature statistics extracted using TF analysis are trained by a DT classifier to perform the automatic classification of PQ disturbances. As the proposed methodology can efficiently identify PQ disturbances, the performance of the DT classifier can be ensured. In addition, the influence of noise is investigated, and 12 types of noisy disturbance, with signal-to-noise ratios of 30–50 dB, are considered for the classification problem. Finally, the proposed method is compared with other popular proposed disturbance-recognition algorithms in terms of detection accuracy. The experimental results reveal that the proposed method can effectively detect and classify different PQ disturbances.
Since the 1990s, market liberalization of the electricity industry has advanced all around the world. To survive in the drastically changing business environment, incumbent electric utility companies ...have conducted operational reforms, including Mergers and Acquisitions (M&As), to enhance and/or complement existing business capabilities. The purpose of this study was to measure the operational efficiencies of 31 of the world’s largest electric utility companies using data from 2010 to 2020 and examine regional differences in and the impacts of M&As on the efficiencies. For this purpose, we applied a new type of Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) and Tobit model regression. We provide findings from the empirical analyses and discuss the business implications of M&As for electric utility companies. The operational efficiency measures were different among regions, but did not show statistically significant changes over the study period from 2010 to 2020. Furthermore, the results of regression analyses indicate that the increasing number of M&A buying transactions and M&A total transactions has a negative marginal impact on the operational efficiency or leads to a lower operational efficiency for utility companies. Since electricity utility companies have not received gains in operational efficiency from increasing the number of M&A transactions, they need to be more cautious about whether M&A transactions can provide value to the operation and technology management.
Electric utility companies (EUCs) play an intermediary role of retailers between wholesale market and end-users, maximizing their profits. Retail pricing can be well deployed with the support of EUCs ...to promote demand response (DR) programs for heating, ventilating, and air-conditioning (HVAC) systems in commercial buildings. This paper proposes a pricing strategy to help EUCs and building operators achieve an optimal DR of price-elastic HVAC systems, considering peak load reduction. The proposed strategy is implemented by adopting a bi-level decision model. The nonlinear thermal response of an experimental building room is modeled using piecewise linear equations, which helps convert the bi-level model to the single-level model. The pricing strategy is implemented considering a time-of-use (TOU) pricing scheme, leading to low price volatility. Case studies are conducted for two types of load curves and the results demonstrate that the proposed strategy helps EUC promote the price-based DR of the commercial buildings for conventional load curves. However, EUC cannot reduce the peak load on duck curve caused by the large introduction of photovoltaic generators, even with price-sensitive HVAC systems in commercial building. This will be addressed in future studies by inducing DR participation of HVAC systems in residential buildings.
Electric distribution utilities are required to continuously deliver reliable electric power to their customers. Regulatory utility commissions often practise reward and penalty schemes to regulate ...reliability performance of utility companies annually with respect to a desired performance targets. However, the conventional regulation procedures are commonly found based on the customer-based standard reliability indices, which are not able to discern the service characteristics behind the electric meters and, hence, fail to holistically characterise the actual impact of electricity interruption. This study proposes a new method to evaluate the load-based reliability indices in power distribution systems using advanced metering infrastructure data. Furthermore, the authors introduce a reward/penalty regulation scheme for utility regulators to provide a reliability oversight using the proposed load-based reliability metrics. The new load-based reliability metric and the reward/penalty scheme proposed bring about superior advantages as the distribution grids become further complex with a high penetration of distributed energy resources and enabled microgrid flexibilities. Numerical analyses on different settings with and without microgrid considerations reveal the applicability and effectiveness of the proposed approach in real-world scenarios.
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