The economics of large-scale combined heat and power (CHP) generation for district heating (DH) applications are strongly affected by the costs and allocation mechanism of CO2 emission allowances. In the next period of the European emission trading system (EU ETS), from 2013 onwards, the...

In this paper, we apply a spread-based real options approach to analyze the decision-making problem of an investor who has the choice between an irreversible investment in a condensing power plant without heat utilization and a plant with combined heat-and-power (CHP) generation. Our...