Enron Mail

From:vince.kaminski@enron.com
To:vkaminski@aol.com
Subject:EES revenue through customer DSM projects
Cc:
Bcc:
Date:Thu, 19 Apr 2001 09:29:00 -0700 (PDT)

---------------------- Forwarded by Vince J Kaminski/HOU/ECT on 04/19/2001
04:28 PM ---------------------------


Jeff Gray@EES
04/17/2001 12:30 PM
To: Vince J Kaminski/HOU/ECT@ECT
cc: Michael Moore/HOU/EES@EES
Subject: EES revenue through customer DSM projects

Vince:

Have you or a member of your group had a chance to look over the forwarded
e-mail yet? We have a meeting on Thursday with another potential client who
plans to use his own capital. His capital budgeting issues are similar to
those of the client who prompted my original e-mail.

The more DSM projects that we can help the client get approved, the more DSM
savings we can share with the client. These DSM projects can turn a retail
commodity contract with low profitability into a substantially more
profitable contract for us.

Would one of your GARCH analyses provide us with a quantitative solution?
One of your experts in differential equations might have devised something.
We'd really like to have something quantitative if you think it's at all
possible.

Thanks,

Jeff

---------------------- Forwarded by Jeff Gray/HOU/EES on 04/17/2001 12:16 PM
---------------------------


Jeff Gray
04/09/2001 04:41 PM
To: Vince J Kaminski/HOU/ECT@ECT
cc: Michael Moore/HOU/EES@EES, Jay Sparling/HOU/EES@EES
Subject: DSM projects as real options

Vince:

Could you spare a few moments to look over the attached three-page Power
Point presentation? At a minimum, we're trying to demonstrate the
following: In high-volatility electricity environments, for those EES
customers who employ their own capital, their usual capital-project IRR
hurdles may be lowered slightly in the special case of DSM projects, to allow
for the extra value derived from reduced risk exposure stemming from reduced
power consumption/dependence.

I'm pushing the boundaries of real-option theory (and good sense) and viewing
a DSM project as a series of options, the values of which are additive.
First is the option to engage in the DSM project itself; which, if we
exercise the option immediately, can be valued intrinsically through a simple
NPV analysis. Second is a strip of put options to generate "negawatts,"
extending over the useful life of a DSM installation, the cumulative value of
which is an extrinsic value associated with the DSM project. These options
are exercised sequentially--over the life of the DSM installation--whenever
the customer experiences a dramatic, stochastic spike in electricity price,
associated with a lognormal price distribution. I'm calling the value of
this strip a "residual time value" associated with the original DSM option.
If we can add this residual time value to the NPV and derive a total value
that is quantitatively higher than a simple NPV alone, we may be able to
help the customer get more projects approved, even at the original high IRR
hurdle.

Alternatively, and more feasibly, we'd like to give these same customers a
"qualitative" tool with which they can convince their finance gatekeepers to
lower--for DSM projects--their standard capital-project IRR hurdle . The
attached presentation is a first attempt at this qualitative argument.

We intend to use this only as a sales and marketing tool, to allow at least
one of our customers who has an onerously high hurdle rate to manage around
his company's internal capital-budgeting requirements. He has set aside a
large sum of money for DSM projects, but will only be able to spend a small
portion of it under his company's current capital budgeting methodology,
which does not take into account forward commodity price volatility.

In your opinion, is there any hope in devising a quantitative justification,
or will we have to stick with the qualitative argument as described in the
attached presentation? In other words, is it possible to quantify "residual
time value" as I've defined it above? Or, even better, are you aware of a
more practical way of conceptualizing this problem?

Thanks,

Jeff Gray







Vince J Kaminski@ECT
01/05/2001 03:26 PM
To: Jeff M Gray/NA/Enron@ENRON
cc: Vince J Kaminski/HOU/ECT@ECT, Stinson Gibner/HOU/ECT@ECT, Alex
Huang/Corp/Enron@ENRON, Gary Hickerson/HOU/ECT@ECT, Michelle D
Cisneros/HOU/ECT@ECT
Subject: Power Plant Model

Jeff,

A few comments on the model:

1. We have a few reservations about some features of the model but would like
to
discuss it internally and make the improvements without giving the benefit of
our insights to the consultant.
In general, the model is not unreasonable but the devil is always in the
details and in the inputs and
calibration. The same model may produce drastically different results
depending
on the quality of inputs.

2. We don't have a separate pool of programmers in the Research Group. We
were told that you
would provide an IT resource. Alex would supervise this person.


Vince