A firm-level analysis of outage loss differentials and self-generation: Evidence from African business enterprises

Musiliu Oseni and Michael Pollitt

Energy Economics, 2015, vol. 52, issue PB, 277-286

Abstract: This study examines the outage loss differential between firms that engage in backup generation and those that do not. Unmitigated outage losses were estimated to be US$2.01–23.92 per kWh for firms engaging in self-generation, and range from US$1.54 to 32.46 per kWh for firms without self-generation. We also find that firms engaging in self-generation would have suffered additional 1–183% outage losses had they not invested in self-generation. On the other hand, firms without self-generation would have reduced their outage losses by around 6–46% if they had engaged in self-generation. Further analyses, however, reveal that, although engagement in self-generation reduced outage losses, a firm engaging in self-generation may still suffer a greater unmitigated outage loss relative to a firm without a backup generator. The relative outage losses depend on the relative vulnerability of the operations of the two sets of firms to power interruption, and the relative generating capacity of a self-generating firm to its own required electricity loads. Policy reforms that allow firms, whose operations are highly vulnerable to outages, to make a binding contract with utilities in order to get preferential supply are recommended.

Keywords: Self-generation; Outage loss; Firms; Value of lost load; Sub-Saharan Africa; South Asia (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: L6 L8 L94 Q41 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2015
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (24)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0140988315003035
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:eneeco:v:52:y:2015:i:pb:p:277-286

DOI: 10.1016/j.eneco.2015.11.008

Access Statistics for this article

Energy Economics is currently edited by R. S. J. Tol, Beng Ang, Lance Bachmeier, Perry Sadorsky, Ugur Soytas and J. P. Weyant

More articles in Energy Economics from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().