Risk Management for Conventional Energy Producers
The highly volatile energy market – above all the development towards renewable energies from alternative energy sources – is increasingly confronting you as conventional energy producer with new challenges. A market environment which becomes increasingly difficult requires a lot of flexibility and innovation from you in order to remain economically competitive.
You are probably one of those operators who have to run their plants in above-average starting and shutdown intervals – in the case of gas or steam turbine power generation maybe even with a requirement to provide an additional oil combustion facility, thus addressing national emergency interests.
You may perhaps have joined a network of conventional power plant operators in order to virtually ensure participation in the spot and balancing energy markets. Besides additional revenue linked to primary, secondary, tertiary, and quaternary balancing energy, remuneration from avoided grid utilization charges based on the "peak-responsibility-method" also forms part of your business planning.
The energy market of today places the highest requirements on the operational availability of conventional plants and, therefore, also on the material. The associated risks represent a challenge for the insurance industry. Whereas previously insurance cover for a conventional plant was primarily aimed at insuring the material substance – which naturally will continue to be important – the focus today is increasingly directed at the risk of revenue loss. The dimensions become clear by figuring out the impact of a fifteen minutes plant standstill on the annual revenues coming from plant operation.