Analysis of Nash-Cournot equilibrium for electricity markets considering option contracts

Option contract is one of the most important instruments for power generators developing bidding strategies and hedging market risk. Based on the peculiarities of bid-based-pool （BBP） power markets, a joint two-stage Cournot equilibrium model for option and spot markets is developed, and analytical formulas for market equilibrium are derived using a backward induction method. The impacts of option contract on efficiency of electricity markets and the behaviors of strategic generators are analyzed. The results show that strategic generators will voluntarily participate in strategic option contracting, and the existence of option contract accelerates the degree of competitive intensity in electricity markets and mitigates the market power abuse of generators to a large extent. In order to retain high spot market price and stable revenues, generators are interested in holding extremely high volatility of spot market price.

Conception of Allocating Farming Water Resource with Option System

The uncertainty of natural fall results in the uncertainty of water resource, which brings difficulty in allocating farming water resource characterized by ＂more use when it is lack but less when enough＂. By analyzing the endurance of farming households of water price and the shortcoming of transaction system of farming water fight, options of farming water are deviated from water fight market, which allows farming households to evade the natural and market risks by means of purchasing call or put option contracts in order to raise the utilization ratio of water and to realize the allocation optimum.

Coordination by Option Contracts in a Retailer-Led Supply Chain with Demand Update

This research examines how to use an option contract to coordinate a retailer-led supply chain where the market information can be updated. Based on Stackelberg game theory, we build a mode with one supplier and one retailer in which the retailer designs contracts to coordinate the supplier＇s production in a two-mode production environment. This focuses on an option contract that consists of two option prices and one exercise price. By theoretical analysis and numerical example, we find that such a contract can coordinate the supplier and retailer to act in the best interest of the channel. The optimal pricing conditions are given as follows： First, option prices should be negatively correlated to the exercise price and should be in a relevant range. Second, the first-period option price should be no greater than the second-period price and should be linearly correlated to the second-period option price when the latter is beyond some threshold. The results show that such option contracts can arbitrarily allocate the extra system profit between the two parties so that each party is in a win-win situation.

Mechanisms of Collaboration in the Hotel Supply Chain:Two-Stage Ordering Contract and Option Contract

This paper considers a hotel supply chain consisting of a hotel and an online travel agent （OTA） for the distribution of a limited number of rooms through both offline and online channels. Under the merchant cooperation assumption, to overcome the disadvantages of the decentralized decision model and demand uncertainty, two collaboration mechanisms, namely a two-stage ordering contract and an option contract, are introduced to increase the profit in the hotel supply chain. This paper investigates the optimal decisions of the hotel and the OTA under different contract models. Moreover, the authors analyze the effect of demand uncertainty and the interaction of demand variability and the hotel＇s capacity on the profits of the hotel and the OTA under different models. The results show that both the two-stage ordering contract and the option contract can increase the profits of the entire supply chain and the hotel; however, the profit of the OTA can be increased through the two-stage ordering contract and option contract only when the hotel＇s capacity is relatively small and the demand variability is big; otherwise, the two collaboration mechanisms cannot increase the OTA＇s profit.