Sherman, Rachael Paige (2020) Assessing the impact of regulation on the performance of power and pipeline projects. PhD thesis, Arizona State University, USA.
Abstract
The International Energy Agency (IEA) anticipates the global energy demand to grow by more than 25% by 2040, requiring more than $2 trillion a year of investment in new energy supply (IEA, 2018). With power needs increasing as populations grow and climate extremes become more routine, power companies seek to continually increase capacity, improve efficiency, and provide resilience to the power grid, such that they can meet the energy needs of the societies they serve, often while trying to minimize their carbon emissions. Despite significant research dedicated to planning for industrial projects, including power generation projects as well as the pipeline projects that enable power generation and distribute power, there are still endemic cost overruns and schedule delays in large scale power generation projects. This research explores root causes of these seemingly systemic project performance issues that plague power generation projects. Specifically, this work analyzes approximately 770 power and pipeline projects and identifies how project performance indicators (i.e., cost and schedule performance) as well as planning indicators, compare in two regulatory environments, namely nonregulated and regulated markets. This contributes explicit understanding of the relationship between project performance and regulatory environment, both quantitatively and qualitatively, to the pipeline and power project planning and construction bodies of knowledge. Following an understanding of nonregulated versus regulated markets, this research takes a deeper dive into one highly-regulated power sector, the nuclear power sector, and explores root causes for cost overruns and schedule delays. This work leverages gray literature (i.e., newspaper articles) as sources, in order to analyze projects individually (most academic literature presents data about an aggregated set of projects) and understand the public perception of risks associated with such projects. This work contributes an understanding of the risks associated with nuclear power plant construction to the nuclear power plant construction body of knowledge. Ultimately, the findings from this research support improved planning for power and pipeline projects, in turn leading to more predictable projects, in terms of cost and schedule performance, regardless of regulatory environment. This enables power providers to meet the capacity demands of a growing population within budget and schedule.
| Item Type: | Thesis (Doctoral) |
|---|---|
| Thesis advisor: | Parrish, Kristen |
| Index terms: | pipeline construction, routine, society, schedule performance, nuclear power, project planning, agency, body of knowledge, regulation, population, newspaper, cost overrun, carbon emission, energy demand, schedule delay, efficiency, pipeline, power generation, markets, project performance |
| Subjects: | demography, communities and social development, knowledge management, economic analysis, climate science, project controls, sociology, infrastructure and transport systems, political science, performance management, civil engineering, project management theory and practice, energy systems, financial and cost management, control systems |
| Topics: | Project Management, Engineering Principles, Sustainability, Quality Management, Business Strategy, Cost Management, Research Practice, Information Management, Stakeholder Management, Governance, Urban Studies, Time Control, Organizational Design |
| Descriptive scope: | 3 PCT |
N.B. Descriptive scope is a count of how many of the five facets of empirical research are indicated by the words used in title, abstract and keywords. It is not intended as a judgement on the research; merely a count of the kind of word we would expect to indicate Phenomenon, Concepts, Theoretical framing, Empirical techniques, Analytical techniques. If all five are present, then a code of “5 PCTEA” will indicate this. If you feel the coding for this record is questionable, we welcome discussion around the terms we matched or the way we categorized them. The facet you would expect may not be coded, or a facet may be coded inappropriately. This can also bear on a larger question, of which facets should be treated as defining in construction management research. Please get in touch, and we will look at it. More details here