Bridging barriers for multi-party investments in energy efficiency – A real options based approach for common utility systems design and evaluation
Paper in proceeding, 2014

Total Site Analysis (TSA) is a tool for quantifying energy savings targets in large industrial process clusters. Thereafter retrofit design tools can be used to identify efficient solutions in which the different process sites exchange excess energy with each other through the site utility system, thus reducing the overall need for external fuels/energy. Compared to energy efficiency investments identified for single companies, similar investments identified for clusters hold an inherent complexity; they assume joint investments and multi-party collaboration, which often constitute a barrier for implementation. Real Options Analysis (ROA) is a tool that can be used for helping managers to evaluate different investment options. However, previous research almost exclusively concerns single companies/actors and not the increased complexity of joint investments. This paper presents a novel approach, showing how ROA can be applied not only to handle uncertainties regarding market development but also reduce complexity associated with multi-party cooperation in a joint energy efficiency investments based on TSA. The approach is applied on a case study of a joint energy efficiency retrofit investment in a Swedish chemical cluster. Using ROA, the case study shows how the identified solution can divided into “investment packages” distributed over time, allowing for an initial investment by only two actors and permitting for an evaluation of both the cooperation and the market development before expanding the investment and the number of actors involved. Further, an economic assessment of the project is presented together with an analysis of the cost/benefit of gradually expanding the investment.

Author

Johanna Mossberg

RISE Research Institutes of Sweden

Roman Hackl

Industrial Energy Systems and Technologies

Simon Harvey

Industrial Energy Systems and Technologies

Christian Jensen

University of Gothenburg

Anders Sandoff

University of Gothenburg

Gabriela Schaad

University of Gothenburg

Andreas Furberg

University of Gothenburg

Mattias Haggärde

University of Gothenburg

Eceee Industrial Summer Study Proceedings

20017979 (ISSN) 20017987 (eISSN)

Subject Categories

Energy Engineering

Areas of Advance

Energy

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