BUEC 463 Energy Industry and Markets Syllabus
Winter Semester, 2020
Instructor: Hailing Zang
Office Hours: Tuesday and Thursday afternoons 1:30 – 3:00 pm Email: [email protected]
Office: BUS 340-C Phone: 780.492.7720
1. Course Overview
The goal of this course is to develop a deeper understanding of energy markets,
regulations, and technologies. We will be looking at the most current trends in renewable developments and their impacts on the power sectors. We will have a deeper look at the upstream and midstream of the oil and gas industry, including things such as the LNG development on the global pricing structure of the natural gas industry. Where possible, I will supplement lectures with visits from guest speakers from industry who will bring practical experience and real-world material to the classroom.
2. Course Expectations
After finishing this course, students should have a deeper understandings of the problems in the deregulated electricity industry, trends and visions of the energy markets. Students should also have a better understanding of our stands on the environmental policies.
Students should be able to apply fundamental economic theories to the understanding of each market, as well as the environment policies. Students should also be able to follow up with economic insights of the changes and trends in regulations and industry activities.
3. Required textbooks
There are no required textbooks for this class, however, having some good textbooks at hand will help better understanding the course in a more systematic way. Most readings are free online and I provide below the references that I use in class.
Electricity Industry
“Power System Economics”, Steven Stoft, ISBN 978-0-471-15040-4, IEEE Press
Oil and Natural Gas Industry
“Oil and Gas for Beginners”, Deutsche Bank Market Research
“Modern Shale Gas Development in the United States: A Primer”, U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Fossil Energy, 2009.
“Gasoline Pricing: Theory and Evidence” Scherer, Industry Structure, Strategy, and Public
Policy, pp. 122-126.
“Vertical Relationships and Competition in Retail Gasoline Markets: Empirical Evidence from Contract Changes in Southern California,” Hastings, American Economic Review, 2004.
“How Economists See the Environment”, Fullerton and Stavins (1998), Nature, October 1, pp. 433-434.
Microeconomics
“Microeconomics”, by Pindyck and Rubinfeld
4. Prerequisite
BUEC 311 or ECON 281
5. Evaluations
Exams (40%)
There will be two exams during the semester. The two exams are NOT cumulative. Each exam is worth 20% of your total mark.
Missing Exams: if you have either 1) an emergency coming up ON the exam date or, 2) if you have already booked an air ticket on the exam date BEFORE the FIRST day of class, or, 3) student athletes have to go with games that conflicts with exam dates. Please provide with valid written excuses and with supporting documents submitted to the lecturer, you are allowed to submit an individual research paper as a makeup work due to the above situations.
Important Dates:
First exam: March 3 in class;
Second exam: April 7 in class, the last day of class.
Presentations (40%)
There will be two group presentations during the course and the presentation schedule is listed below. (The presentation schedule is also listed in the course outline section at the end.) No matter when the presentation is actually scheduled to be presented in class, the presentation should be submitted before the due date and time, otherwise a 5% mark will be deducted from each of the late submitted presentation.
Marking of the presentations: After the presentations, each group should give a peer review of the other groups for their presentations. Rubrics of the marking is listed below. Peer review mark is an average of all the reviewing groups’ marks, and will contribute to 50%
of the total presentation mark. The remaining 50% mark is given by the instructor.
Due date for first presentation submission date: Feb 24 11:59 pm;
Due date for second presentation submission date: March 30 11:59 pm.
First class presentation period: Feb. 25 & Feb. 27;
Second class presentation period: March 31 & April 2
Rubrics of Presentations:
Whether key points are clearly delivered or not
Whether the topic is current or not
Whether the discussion has data and fact supports
Whether the presenters has their own analysis or just copy facts
Whether questions are answered well enough
Quizzes (20%)
There will be 4 quizzes during the semester. The quizzes will be on Fridays (see Course Outlines). The quizzes are to help reinforce the knowledge taught. Each quiz is 5% of your total mark.
If a student has a valid excuse for missing a quiz and explained to the instructor in writing BEFORE the quiz, the quiz weight is assigned to the nearest exam. However, no excuse will be accepted AFTER the quiz is administered and no makeups for the quiz.
Letter Grade
The final letter grade will depend on your relative performance within the class. I will announce the letter grade cutoff marks after the last exam is marked. The distribution of the letter grade will follow the school guided distributions.
There is NO makeup or extra class work to improve your mark.
6. The Code of Student Behavior
The University of Alberta is committed to the highest standards of academic integrity and honesty. Students are expected to be familiar with these standards regarding academic honesty and to uphold the policies of the University in this respect. Students are particularly urged to familiarize themselves with the provisions of the Code of Student Behavior (http://www.uofaweb.ualberta.ca/gfcpolicymanual/content.cfm?ID_page=37633) and avoid any behavior which could potentially result in suspicious of cheating, plagiarism, misrepresentation of facts and/or participation in an offence. Academic dishonesty is a serious offence and can result in suspension or expulsion from the University.
7. Course Outlines
Week 1: Course Introductions and BUEC 363 Electricity market review - overview Week 2: BUEC 363 Electricity market review – market architecture (Quiz)
Week 3: BUEC 363 Electricity market review – locational pricing and congestion
Week 4: BUEC 363 Electricity market review – ancillary service and capacity market design (Quiz)
Week 5: Renewables and its impact on the electricity market Week 6: Storage and its impact on the electricity market Week 7: Reading Week
Week 8: Class Presentation March 3: EXAM I
Week 9: History of oil and natural gas market Week 10: Oil and natural gas industry basics (Quiz) Week 11: Oil and natural gas industry structures Week 12: World oil and natural gas markets (Quiz) Week 13: Class Presentation
Apr. 7: Exam II