Gas and Coal Economics, page-48

Stay in school.  Your assignment is to define a bidding strategy (informed by game theory or not) for this plant to make money in the WESM.  The only restrictions -- no heroic assumptions on policy changes specifically benefiting this plant (so no bailout), and you cannot just wish away the coal plants and renewables (so no heroic assumptions on carbon tax or other COP 21 related measures either).

I have circulated stuff on how WESM actually works, and some of it was written by the market operator itself.  Profound apologies for having found it using google but I guess that just shows what happens when you really want something.  Pure magic.

In that spirit, here is a nice piece by a knowledgeable guy that you might enjoy reading.  This point on price sensitivity particularly in Asian markets is important, in my opinion, though I have my own views that are not identical to Stern's and I would say are more bullish (in part because it is getting noticeably harder to site coal plants in many parts of East Asia).  But the main takeaway -- that the future of gas is not automatically secured just because certain non-binding commitments have been made -- is right, IMHO.  Where you do not see commitments backed up by consistent (and binding) policy and regulatory support, LNG is likely to lose out to coal in the fuel mix, at least for a time.  In the Philippines you do not yet see such tangible policy support which was the whole point of the local commentator's article.

https://www.oxfordenergy.org/wpcms/...-of-Gas-unburnable-or-unaffordable-NG-125.pdf