Investment Cost Specifications Revisited

Mathias Mier and Valeriya Azarova

No 376, ifo Working Paper Series from ifo Institute - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich

Abstract: Policymakers misjudge results of technology-rich optimization models because those models specify investment cost differently and thus are not equally sensitive towards changing financing cost and discount rates. We apply an intertemporally optimizing power market model to analyze three different investment cost specifications. The three specifications lead to a substantially different pace and rate of adoption for specific generation technologies and diverging carbon prices. The first assumes that an investment is financed by equity only, the second one applies a mix of equity and debt, and the third one assumes complete debt financing. The equity specification is completely insensitive towards changing financing cost, fosters early wind power deployment, and finally yields lowest carbon prices. The mixed capital one is extremely sensitive towards changing financing cost and postpones wind power deployment towards later periods. The debt specification is also insensitive towards changing discount rates and in general yields lowest investments and highest carbon prices.

Keywords: Investment cost; discounting; financing cost; optimization model; power market model (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C61 C68 Q40 Q41 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cfn and nep-ene
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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