Saudi Arabia plans to reform and privatize its power generation sector as part of the Kingdom’s Vision 2030. To provide analytical insights, we developed a model that simulates the restructuring of the electricity market, along with reforming fuel prices to an energy equivalent of $3/MMBtu.
Authors
Bertrand Rioux
Bertrand is a research fellow focusing on the impact of market regulation and liberalization in energy markets. An experienced energy systems…Bertrand is a research fellow focusing on the impact of market regulation and liberalization in energy markets. An experienced energy systems model developer (linear optimization and mixed complementary problems), he is working on developing the KAPSARC Energy Model (KEM) as a decision support tool for analyzing price regulation in energy economies. Bertrand has contributed to the development of KEM Saudi Arabia and is the lead developer of KEM China, studying the impact of government regulation in the coal, power and natural gas markets. He was previously employed as a research assistant at the Canadian Space Agency.
Acting Vice President/ Program DirectorAxel Pierru received his Ph.D. in economics from University Paris 1 Pantheon-Sorbonne (France). He also holds an HDR degree, which…Axel Pierru received his Ph.D. in economics from University Paris 1 Pantheon-Sorbonne (France). He also holds an HDR degree, which is a French accreditation to supervise research. In 2007, Dr. Pierru was appointed Chevalier dans l’Ordre des Palmes Académiques (knighthood award in the academic field) by the French Ministry for National Education.
In 2011 Dr. Pierru joined KAPSARC in Saudi Arabia, after spending 15 years at IFP Energies Nouvelles (France) where he led research, consulting and training projects and taught energy economics and finance to postgraduate students.
Dr. Pierru has served in various leadership positions at KAPSARC, including as interim Vice President for Research. Since 2014 he has been a program director, and currently he leads the Energy Macro & Micro-economics Program. He is also Acting Vice President, Knowledge & Analysis.
He undertakes applied research that combines methodological innovation with practical relevance for policymaking. His expertise covers oil market and pricing, energy economics, policy, finance and modeling, and oil-exporting economies.
Dr. Pierru has a proven track record of methodological innovations with 50 journal papers to his name. He has been a key contributor to the development of novel lines of research, such as the role of OPEC in stabilizing the oil market, the economic modeling of price controls, or the evaluation of investment projects by international oil companies facing various tax systems.
He also coauthored with Denis Babusiaux the book Corporate Investment Decisions and Economic Analysis: Exercises and Case Studies (2005), which is the fruit of years of teaching, consulting and research, and contains numerous examples from the oil and gas sector.
Research FellowNader is a research fellow at KAPSARC. His research interests include development economics, economic modeling, and natural resource economics. He leads…Nader is a research fellow at KAPSARC. His research interests include development economics, economic modeling, and natural resource economics. He leads a project exploring the role of sovereign wealth funds in promoting economic diversification in oil-dependent economies. Nader holds a B.Sc. in operations research, an M.Sc. in applied mathematics and computational science, and an MBA in finance.
Expertise
Sovereign wealth funds; natural resource economics; economic modeling
