| 摘要 | ABSTRACT
Currently, Korea��s electricity market is called as a cost-based pool(CBP) where competition is allowed only in generation but transmission, distribution and retail sales are still monopolized by Korean Electricity Power Corporation (KEPCO). In the initial stage of electricity industry restructuring in Korea, there is a problem of excess profits generated by base load facilities due to the fact that on the demand side there is excessive demand for electricity because of cheap electricity tariffs while on the supply side there is lack of base load facilities. To stabilize the market price by absorbing this excess profits generated by base load facilities, the government has implemented several market settlement rules in such a way that base load facilities are charged separately from peak load facilities or adjustment factors are applied only to generation companies from KEPCO��s generation division.
However, these kinds of market settlement rules, which have been applied to all base load facilities without distinguishing new facilities from existing ones, have failed to induce new investments in base load facilities. In addition, the government has changed upper limit prices and adjustment factors in a frequent way and intervened in regulating the revenues of generation companies in an ex-post way, resulting in the inefficient operation of power plants. As a result, since the inception of CBP in Korea, the shortage problem of base load facilities is not improving but rather worsening and the balance of supply and demand is also being delayed. Therefore, instead of the current market settlement rules, there is the need of transitional market price stabilization scheme that does not distort the long-term investment decisions and enhance the operational efficiency of generation companies.
In this study, we suggest a price stabilization scheme as a way of vesting contract that has a form of contact for difference between generation company and sales company. In particular, we present a way of how to set a contract price that should cover the total cost of production and ensure the fair rate of return and suggest that this contract price be applied to existing facilities to absorb the excess profits described above.
A brief description of this study is as follows: Section 2 points out that the system marginal price in the wholesale electricity market in Korea tends to continuously increase due to the fact that peak load facilities are frequently determined as a system marginal generator and that this structural problem mainly comes from the lack of base load facilities. And Section 3 discusses that the current market price stabilization scheme, which is so called adjustment factors rule, is not able to resolve the problems described above and to improve the efficiency of the wholesale market. Therefore, Section 4 suggests a vesting contract in a form of contract for difference and present its several positive functions and aspects such as hedge against price volatility, downward price stabilization, and market power mitigation. Finally, Section 5 discusses how to design a vesting contract concerning contract amount, contract price, contract object and contract period. Specifically, with regard to contract price, we present two calculation methods using the total cost of production and the long run marginal cost. We stress that this contract price should reflect the total cost of electricity production and it should be set to be linked with the movement of fuel prices. With regard to contract object, we state that it is necessary to distinguish between existing facilities and new facilities and that a vesting contract ensuring the fair rate of return should be applied to existing facilities. However, new facilities should be allowed to make a profit at the market price, which may induce new investments in base load facilities on the supply side to help stabilize the market price.
If this scheme is implemented, there would be a concern that KEPCO��s power purchase costs would surge temporarily. On the contrary, however, it is expected that this policy scheme would induce new investment into the market aggressively to offset KEPCO��s power purchase costs by lowering the market price. It seems to need a detailed discussion on this matter with a quantitative analysis if all relevant data is available for the future research concerning a vesting contract. |
