Power to the Fiscal? An Exploration of the Use of Credit Ratings to Estimate the Expected Cost of a Guarantee of a Power-Purchase Agreement

Ministries of finance are often asked to guarantee a state-owned electricity utility's payments to an independent power producer under a power-purchase agreement. To decide whether to grant the guarantee, the ministry should have at least a ro...

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Main Authors: Aslan, Cigdem, Irwin, Tim
Format: Working Paper
Language:English
Published: World Bank, Washington, DC 2020
Subjects:
Online Access:http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/865871591378220034/Power-to-the-Fiscal-An-Exploration-of-the-Use-of-Credit-Ratings-to-Estimate-the-Expected-Cost-of-a-Guarantee-of-a-Power-Purchase-Agreement
http://hdl.handle.net/10986/33873
id okr-10986-33873
recordtype oai_dc
spelling okr-10986-338732022-09-20T00:12:34Z Power to the Fiscal? An Exploration of the Use of Credit Ratings to Estimate the Expected Cost of a Guarantee of a Power-Purchase Agreement Aslan, Cigdem Irwin, Tim FISCAL POLICY GUARANTEES POWER PURCHASE AGREEMENT INDEPENDENT POWER PRODUCER ELECTRICITY FISCAL RISK PUBLIC GUARANTEE STATE-OWNED ENTERPRISES ELECTRIC UTILITIES Ministries of finance are often asked to guarantee a state-owned electricity utility's payments to an independent power producer under a power-purchase agreement. To decide whether to grant the guarantee, the ministry should have at least a rough estimate of the guarantee's expected cost. Making use of an analogy between a power-purchase agreement and a debt contract, this paper shows how the ministry can get such an estimate by applying a method developed to estimate the expected cost of debt guarantees. An estimate of the probability of the utility's not being able to meet its obligations under the power-purchase agreement can be derived from the utility's actual or estimated credit rating in the absence of government support. The government's expected payments under the guarantee can then be estimated by multiplying the utility's payments under the power-purchase agreement by this probability. The estimates produced by the method will be imprecise, but the method may be easier to apply than alternative methods, and an imprecise estimate may be better for policy makers than no estimate. 2020-06-11T14:38:20Z 2020-06-11T14:38:20Z 2020-06 Working Paper http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/865871591378220034/Power-to-the-Fiscal-An-Exploration-of-the-Use-of-Credit-Ratings-to-Estimate-the-Expected-Cost-of-a-Guarantee-of-a-Power-Purchase-Agreement http://hdl.handle.net/10986/33873 English Policy Research Working Paper;No. 9271 CC BY 3.0 IGO http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/igo World Bank World Bank, Washington, DC Publications & Research Publications & Research :: Policy Research Working Paper
repository_type Digital Repository
institution_category Foreign Institution
institution Digital Repositories
building World Bank Open Knowledge Repository
collection World Bank
language English
topic FISCAL POLICY
GUARANTEES
POWER PURCHASE AGREEMENT
INDEPENDENT POWER PRODUCER
ELECTRICITY
FISCAL RISK
PUBLIC GUARANTEE
STATE-OWNED ENTERPRISES
ELECTRIC UTILITIES
spellingShingle FISCAL POLICY
GUARANTEES
POWER PURCHASE AGREEMENT
INDEPENDENT POWER PRODUCER
ELECTRICITY
FISCAL RISK
PUBLIC GUARANTEE
STATE-OWNED ENTERPRISES
ELECTRIC UTILITIES
Aslan, Cigdem
Irwin, Tim
Power to the Fiscal? An Exploration of the Use of Credit Ratings to Estimate the Expected Cost of a Guarantee of a Power-Purchase Agreement
relation Policy Research Working Paper;No. 9271
description Ministries of finance are often asked to guarantee a state-owned electricity utility's payments to an independent power producer under a power-purchase agreement. To decide whether to grant the guarantee, the ministry should have at least a rough estimate of the guarantee's expected cost. Making use of an analogy between a power-purchase agreement and a debt contract, this paper shows how the ministry can get such an estimate by applying a method developed to estimate the expected cost of debt guarantees. An estimate of the probability of the utility's not being able to meet its obligations under the power-purchase agreement can be derived from the utility's actual or estimated credit rating in the absence of government support. The government's expected payments under the guarantee can then be estimated by multiplying the utility's payments under the power-purchase agreement by this probability. The estimates produced by the method will be imprecise, but the method may be easier to apply than alternative methods, and an imprecise estimate may be better for policy makers than no estimate.
format Working Paper
author Aslan, Cigdem
Irwin, Tim
author_facet Aslan, Cigdem
Irwin, Tim
author_sort Aslan, Cigdem
title Power to the Fiscal? An Exploration of the Use of Credit Ratings to Estimate the Expected Cost of a Guarantee of a Power-Purchase Agreement
title_short Power to the Fiscal? An Exploration of the Use of Credit Ratings to Estimate the Expected Cost of a Guarantee of a Power-Purchase Agreement
title_full Power to the Fiscal? An Exploration of the Use of Credit Ratings to Estimate the Expected Cost of a Guarantee of a Power-Purchase Agreement
title_fullStr Power to the Fiscal? An Exploration of the Use of Credit Ratings to Estimate the Expected Cost of a Guarantee of a Power-Purchase Agreement
title_full_unstemmed Power to the Fiscal? An Exploration of the Use of Credit Ratings to Estimate the Expected Cost of a Guarantee of a Power-Purchase Agreement
title_sort power to the fiscal? an exploration of the use of credit ratings to estimate the expected cost of a guarantee of a power-purchase agreement
publisher World Bank, Washington, DC
publishDate 2020
url http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/865871591378220034/Power-to-the-Fiscal-An-Exploration-of-the-Use-of-Credit-Ratings-to-Estimate-the-Expected-Cost-of-a-Guarantee-of-a-Power-Purchase-Agreement
http://hdl.handle.net/10986/33873
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