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This book reviews the major developments in and the lessons learned from the 21-year (1991-2012) experience with private sector participation (PSP) in the power sector in India. It discusses the political economy context of the policy changes, looks at reform initiatives that were implemented for the generation sector, describes transmission and distribution segments at different points in the evolution of the sector, and concludes with a summary of lessons learned and a suggested way forward. The evolution of private participation in the Indian power sector can be divided into different phases. Phase one was launched with the opening of the generation sector to private investment in 1991. Phase two soon followed - early experiments with state-level unbundling and other reform initiatives, including regulatory reform, culminating in divestiture, and privatization in Orissa and Delhi respectively. Phase three, the passage of the electricity act of 2003 by the central government, followed by a large increase in private entry into generation and forays into transmission and experiments with distribution franchise models in urban and rural areas during the 11th five-year plan (2007-12) period. In phase four, at the start of the 12th five-year plan (2012-17), the sector is seeing a sharp reduction in bid euphoria and greater risk aversion on the part of bidders, who are concerned about access to basic inputs such as fuel and land. In this context, the report is structured as follows: chapter one gives introduction; chapter two presents private sector participation in thermal generation; chapter three presents private sector participation in transmission; chapter four deals with private sector participation in distribution; chapter five deals with private sector participation in the Indian solar energy sector; chapter six deals with financing of the power sector; chapter seven presents emerging issues and proposed approaches for the Indian power sector; and chapter eight give updates.

At present, different concentrating solar thermal technologies (CST) have reached varying degrees of commercial availability. This emerging nature of CST means that there are market and technical impediments to accelerating its acceptance, including cost competitiveness, an understanding of technology capability and limitations, intermittency, and benefits of electricity storage. Many developed and some developing countries are currently working to address these barriers in order to scale up CST-based power generation.Given the considerable growth of CST development in several World Bank Group partner countries, there is a need to assess the recent experience of developed countries in designing and implementing regulatory frameworks and draw lesson that could facilitate the deployment of CST technologies in developing countries. Merely replicating developed countries’ schemes in the context of a developing country may not generate the desired outcomes.Against this background, this report (a) analyzes and draws lessons from the efforts of some developed countries and adapts them to the characteristics of developing economies; (b) assesses the cost reduction potential and economic and financial affordability of various CST technologies in emerging markets; (c) evaluates the potential for cost reduction and associated economic benefits derived from local manufacturing; and (d) suggests ways to tailor bidding models and practices, bid selection criteria, and structures for power purchase agreements (PPAs) for CST projects in developing market conditions.

Electrolytic hydrogen produced using renewable electricity can help lower carbon dioxide emissions in sectors where feedstocks, reducing agents, dense fuels or high temperatures are required. This study investigates the implications of various standards being proposed to certify that the grid electricity used is renewable. The standards vary in how strictly they match the renewable generation to the electrolyser demand in time and space. Using an energy system model, we compare electricity procurement strategies to meet a constant hydrogen demand for selected European countries in 2025 and 2030. We compare cases where no additional renewable generators are procured with cases where the electrolyser demand is matched to additional supply from local renewable generators on an annual, monthly or hourly basis. We show that local additionality is required to guarantee low emissions. For the annually and monthly matched case, we demonstrate that baseload operation of the electrolysis leads to using fossil-fuelled generation from the grid for some hours, resulting in higher emissions than the case without hydrogen demand. In the hourly matched case, hydrogen production does not increase system-level emissions, but baseload operation results in high costs for providing constant supply if only wind, solar and short-term battery storage are available. Flexible operation or buffering hydrogen with storage, either in steel tanks or underground caverns, reduces the cost penalty of hourly versus annual matching to 7%–8%. Hydrogen production with monthly matching can reduce system emissions if the electrolysers operate flexibly or the renewable generation share is large. The largest emission reduction is achieved with hourly matching when surplus electricity generation can be sold to the grid. We conclude that flexible operation of the electrolysis should be supported to guarantee low emissions and low hydrogen production costs.

At the end of 2011, the Indian power sector found itself in financial crisis, just a decade after the 2001 bailout of state electricity boards (SEBs) by the central government. Bankrupt state power distribution utilities in several states were unable to pay their bills or repay their debts. Despite the passage of the landmark 2003 Electricity Act and implementation of a broad set of reforms over the past decade, the sector today is looking at another rescue from the center, four times larger than before. This financial rescue scheme amounts to about Rs 1.9 trillion ($42 billion) and was instigated by the nonperforming assets of the banks and other financial institutions. The Electricity Act was envisaged to create independent companies functioning on commercial principles, but they are still far away from that goal. This report presents a diagnostic of the financial and operational performance of segments in the power sector value chain between adoption of the Electricity Act, 2003, and 2011, including analysis of the factors that contributed to the recent crisis. The report focuses on efficiency and productivity, whether performance has improved over time, and which states have emerged as performance leaders. Analysis of this kind is not new or unique, but this report aims to integrate historical performance, the current situation, future projections of the impact of worsening sector finances, and the actions that need to be taken to check the downturn. The report draws primarily from utility data collected by the Power Finance Corporation in successive years on utilities operational and financial performance. The Power Finance Corporation data were collated into a single database with the addition of various operational parameters at the plant level and the utility level from the Central Electricity Authority.

Power Purchase Agreements (PPAs) typically involve a power producer and a power purchaser. Historically, these two primary parties agree to pricing terms that will be honored over multiple year contracts. Successful wind farm enterprises also rely on third parties for critical services like operations and maintenance (O&M). These O&M service contracts are often provided for the wind farm (Principal) by the original equipment manufacturer (OEM) (Agent). In a case where the Agent billed per work completed, and had superior knowledge as to required maintenance, the Agent could be incentivized to overbill the Principal. On the other hand, a Pixed, annual cost contract might lead the Agent to under-maintain the asset. The information asymmetry between the Principal and Agent could be eliminated if the wind farm and the OEM are both parties to the PPA. With aligned interests, there will be incentive to minimize downtime and increase farm performance. This study employs a Monte Carlo simulation to model 10,000 performance comparisons of a three-party PPA that includes the O&M provider, against a standard two-party PPA version that includes only the wind farm and power purchaser. The investigation is based on two years of operations data from a 200 MW Canadian wind farm. More than 50% of cases tested show power producer proPit increases greater than$16.9M (4.1%) and greater than $ 11.7M (3.5%) increases for the OEM over a traditional two-party PPA. A global sensitivity analysis was also completed which showed that the power sale price and the shared revenue percentage were most inPluential in terms of total earnings for each party.

This report assesses the potential of electricity contract auctions as a procurement option for the World Bank's client countries. It focuses on the role of auctions of electricity contracts designed to expand and retain existing generation capacity. It is not meant to be a 'how-to' manual. Rather, it highlights some major issues and options that need to be taken into account when a country considers moving towards competitive electricity procurement through the introduction of electricity auctions. Auctions have played an important role in the effort to match supply and demand. Ever since the 1990s, the use of long-term contract auctions to procure new generation capacity, notably from private sector suppliers, has garnered increased affection from investors, governments, and multilateral agencies in general, as a means to achieve a competitive and transparent procurement process while providing certainty of supply for the medium to long term. However, the liberalization of electricity markets and the move from single-buyer procurement models increased the nature of the challenge facing system planners in their efforts to ensure an adequate and secure supply of electricity in the future at the best price. While auctions as general propositions are a means to match supply with demand in a cost-effective manner, they can also be and have been used to meet a variety of goals.

In recent years, sustainability initiatives and the prominence of renewables have emerged as pivotal priorities in addressing environmental, ecological, and socioeconomic challenges. Within this context, green certificates—representing proof of electricity generation from renewable sources—have gained substantial recognition, enabling organizations to demonstrate their commitment to clean energy. This study employs a bibliometric analysis to chart the evolution and current state of green certificates research. Drawing from the Scopus database, we sourced bibliographic data, resulting in a refined dataset of 940 documents spanning from 2000 to 2022. Through performance analysis, we systematically evaluated the landscape of green certificates research, assessing publication trends, identifying influential works, spotlighting prolific authors, highlighting leading academic institutions, mapping regional research hotspots, and pinpointing the top publishing journals in the domain. Employing science mapping techniques—such as co-authorship networks, keyword co-occurrence analysis, and bibliographic coupling—we delineated the collaborative patterns and the conceptual and intellectual structure of the field. This was further augmented by content analysis, revealing four salient research themes, emphasizing the consistent and central focus on support mechanisms and policies for renewable energy sources, sustainable renewable technologies and market dynamics, technological innovations and green certificate trading, and renewable energy sources investment strategies. Building on these findings, the paper concludes by outlining practical implications and prospective research avenues. These encompass a detailed understanding of renewable energy support mechanisms, the pivotal role of electricity disclosure in enhancing transparency, and the transformative potential of emergent technologies, such as artificial intelligence and blockchain, in the green certificate trading landscape. The research also emphasizes the fundamental role of guarantees of origin in advancing sustainability goals, the dynamic discourse on green hydrogen certification standards, and the intricate dynamics of trading mechanisms in shaping investment strategies.

Introduction Cost-effectiveness analysis can be a powerful policy-making tool. In the two decades since the first cost-effectiveness analyses in global surgery, the methodology has established the cost-effectiveness of many types of surgery in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). However, with the crescendo of cost-effectiveness analyses in global surgery has come vast disparities in methodology, with only 15% of studies adhering to published guidelines. This has led to results that have varied up to 150-fold. Methods The theoretical basis, common pitfalls, and guidelines-based recommendations for cost-effectiveness analyses are reviewed, and a checklist to be used for cost-effectiveness analyses in global surgery is created. Results Common pitfalls in global surgery cost-effectiveness analyses fall into five categories: the analytic perspective, cost measurement, effectiveness measurement, probability estimation, valuation of the counterfactual, and heterogeneity and uncertainty. These are reviewed in turn, and a checklist to avoid these pitfalls is developed. Conclusion Cost-effectiveness analyses, when done rigorously, can be very useful for the development of efficient surgical systems in LMICs. This review highlights the common pitfalls in these analyses and methods to avoid these pitfalls.

The transition to renewable energy has become a grave global priority, with governments relying on financial instruments such as feed-in tariffs (FiTs) and power purchase agreements (PPAs) to stimulate public investments. Despite their widespread adoption, evidence regarding their effectiveness across different contexts remains fragmented. This study aims to evaluate whether FiTs and PPAs significantly drive public investments in renewable energy, using a cross-country perspective. The analysis provides panel data from 59 countries, combining information on FiTs and PPAs with public investment data complemented by macroeconomic and energy consumption indicators. The empirical framework employs a Seemingly Unrelated Regression panel model with Driscoll–Kraay standard errors to account for cross-sectional dependence and heteroskedasticity. The findings reveal that the effectiveness of FiTs and PPAs varies substantially across renewable energy sectors. For instance, FiTs for wind energy (β = 0.15, p < 0.01) and hydropower PPAs (β = 0.22, p < 0.001) emerge as strong positive drivers of investment. In contrast, PPAs for solar (β = –0.13, p < 0.05) and geothermal energy (β = –0.08, p < 0.05) show adverse and significant effects. Bioenergy FiTs, meanwhile, indicate a weak negative impact (β = –0.10, p ≈ 0.06). Additionally, macroeconomic factors such as energy consumption per capita (β = 0.34, p < 0.01) also play a decisive role, while GDP per capita exerts no consistent effect. These results suggest that FiTs and PPAs remain important but unevenly effective tools, requiring careful calibration that is both sector-specific and country-specific.

The paper introduces a framework of operation of maritime-related enterprises like port authorities and ship-owning or operating companies along with electric energy providers in the electric energy market as a consequence of the global decarbonization effort and, in particular, due to the implementation of ship electrification at berth. Within this context, the main rules of this energy market framework will consist of a proper combination of power purchase agreements along with contracts for difference in an attempt to obtain transactions that are mutually beneficial at least on a mid-term basis. The methodology, which is fully compatible with the electric energy market rules of the European Union, is enriched by a variety of alternative scenarios on the selling prices of electricity, showing that even when monthly or annual periods are used for reference, it is highly possible that all parties engaged have benefits.